The Hanging Tree
by FernWithy
Summary: Haymitch's life continues to deteriorate between the Victory Tour and his first Games as mentor.
1. Chapter 1

**Part One: Out-District**

**Chapter One**  
I sit in the last car on the train, staring out at the landscape around me. The back windows have retracted, and there's a slight breeze. The smell of the woods and the mountains fills my head. We're in the out-districts now, the no-man's land between District Twelve and District Eleven. My parents once wanted to run away and live in these hills, away from the cruelties of District Twelve.

Of course, people caught out here tend to get sent back to the districts, anyway, if they don't get killed by wild animals or the wild people who are rumored to wander around in violent bands. We stopped for re-fueling about an hour out of Twelve, in a fortified island in the wilderness staffed by people from Six who must have really annoyed someone to draw this duty. I tried to talk to them, but the Games staff pulled me away. Victors are not, apparently, supposed to chat with laborers from other districts.

There's nothing surprising about the landscape. I've seen maps. District Twelve is at the northern end of a mountain chain, and it's probably going to be pretty much the same until we get almost to District Eleven - it's our mountains, our woods, the same ones I see across the fence at home, just… more of it.

Still, I watch. This train moves slower than the one that took me to the Games, and I can actually see the land we're moving through. I catch glimpses of little streams, and of the river whose twisting path the train keeps intersecting. The sun, now quite low in the west, hits it and reflects back bursts of golden light between the trees. I know it's part of a long river system that runs around District Twelve - we've gotten enough mining history to know that's how they used to ship the coal - but if it had a name before, no one knows it anymore. Mr. Chalfant called it the Shipping River. It's really at least three rivers that we know about - one big one that flows southwest, and two smaller ones that join together to form it, somewhere a little to the northeast of District Twelve. I wish I could see that place, where the three rivers meet. There was supposed to be a big city there once. I wonder if there are ruins. I've heard of ruins, but I've never seen them, unless you count the burned out resort in the woods outside Twelve. The train is following the river that meanders up from the south, heading for its headwaters in the mountains. Once we're out of river, I won't have any idea where I am.

I'm actually kind of excited about this. I'm surprised. I wasn't planning on looking forward to anything. It's not that I'm thrilled, or jumping up and down for it. But the idea that I'm actually looking out the windows and being interested by what I see is… unexpected. It's a big country outside the fence.

The door at the back of the car slides open, and Pelagia Pepper comes in. Gia was my escort for the Games, and she'll get me through the Victory Tour. I don't know what made her get demoted from District Seven down to Twelve, but I'm glad I've got her instead of the old escort, Ausonius Glass. He worked in District Twelve for years, and everyone knew he hated us and our tributes. He used to call the families of the dead ones just to torment them.

But Gia's decent. She wrote to me when my mother and brother died, and even came out to take care of me after my girl, Digger, was murdered. She's a rebel. I don't know why anyone in the Capitol would ever rebel - they get everything out of the set-up we have - but I guess she's not the only one.

Also, she's not hard to look at. Once the train got moving and the cameras went off to the districts where we're heading, she shed her wig and got into clothes that actually move with her body. They're still Capitol clothes, but I guess even Capitol people have to be comfortable sometimes. She looks smaller in them. Her long red hair is clipped back with a barrette that has three fish jumping around each other in a circle, and, without the crazy makeup, I can see that her eyes are a pretty shade of green. She looks younger. Not as young as me, but not that much older, either.

"Whatever you're thinking about," she says, sitting down across from me, "put it out of your head."

"I wasn't thinking about anything. Just wondering how old you are."

"Twenty-six."

"Just ten years older than me, then."

"Ten pretty important years."

"I'm not flirting. Just making conversation. How long have you been an escort?"

"Eight years. I started when I was eighteen, right after I finished school." She watches out the window for a while. "I've never been anywhere other than the Capitol, Seven, and Twelve."

"I've only been in Twelve, the Capitol, and the arena, so we're even. Except that the arena isn't a real place, so you're ahead."

She wrinkles her nose. "It's real enough. I visited, so I guess that's on my list now, too. They open it for tourists next month. There's a waiting list."

My stomach turns over. "Tell them to watch out for those squirrels."

"I think they got all of them out."

"You sure? They were tricky little bastards."

"I'm surprised you'd worry about arena tourists."

I shrug. I hadn't meant to sound that way at all. Though I guess it _would_ be a little disproportionate for them to get punished for being stupid and thoughtless by being eaten by vermin. That would be better punishment for the Gamemakers themselves.

Gia doesn't pursue this. "You're going to need to go back to prep. I know you hate it. But they have to get you looking good for the cameras in every district, so get used to it. All you need to do is read a speech, then do whatever the district has planned. It's usually a banquet with some kind of local foods. A dance. Sometimes a tour."

"Okay."

"There will be booze. You will not be drinking it."

I look up, cross. "Hey!"

"Next summer, you're going to have two tributes counting on you to get them sponsors. That will be considerably easier to do if you're not a running joke."

"Thanks a lot," I mutter, and turn back to the window. I realize we have lost sight of the river, and gone into the unknown. It looks a lot like the known, except without a river. It's kind of disappointing, though I don't know what I expected.

"Haymitch, look at me." I do. She is leaning forward and staring at me intently. "They _do_ treat it as a joke in the Capitol. You know that. I know you've seen it on television."

"A little."

"But I don't think it's a joke. I think you're trying to drink yourself into an early grave and I don't want to dig it for you."

"I thought the Capitol used machines for that. They'll just use some machine and plant me with the rest of the tributes. And Duronda."

"The point is that I don't want to see your grave being dug at all. Not until you've had a good, long life, full of people you love. Drowning yourself in liquor isn't any less suicide than hanging yourself from a tree."

"I decided to burn the tree instead," I say. "The rope I brought out made a good fuse." I mean to say it coldly, an accusation. But my voice shakes a little. I haven't told anyone about why I was out at the tree. Not Danny, not Chaff. I haven't even mentioned it in the dream conversations I sometimes have with Digger or Maysilee or Mom, though they seem to know. I force my voice to obey me, and toss my head indifferently. "Killing myself seemed like a waste of time."

If Gia's shocked to find out that I was considering this, she doesn't show it. "You should have tossed the booze in. It makes a great accelerant, and then it would be gone, too." She looks at me carefully. "Do you need to talk to someone, Haymitch? Someone a little more qualified than me to… I don't know. Advise you."

I shake my head. "So, no drinking in the districts. What am I allowed to do?"

"Talk to anyone who wants to talk to you. Be careful what you say - the cameras will be there, and trust me when I tell you that anything you say will come back to haunt you."

"Okay."

"You should eat as much as you want, and tell them how good it is, even if you don't like it."

I frown at her, irritated. "I wasn't born in a coal bin. I know how to be a guest. I don't suppose that if I go light on the eating, they'd give the leftovers to hungry people in the districts?"

"They'll throw it out. You know that." I don't answer, and go back to looking at the mountains. She goes on. "Some places might have dancing - do you dance?"

"Yeah. We dance in District Twelve."

"Good." She pauses. "Haymitch… there are likely to be girls. And a lot of them. Sometimes boys, too, depending on the district. Some of them might be poor kids trying to turn a coin or two, but most of them, especially the closer you get to the Capitol, are going to be groupies."

"Is _that_ allowed?" I ask. I can't see myself spending that kind of time with girls without my mind flashing on pulling Digger's body off the fence, but I'm curious.

"It's allowed. They revisit the question every year - whether or not to give male victors on the tour the same shots you get in the arena - but for now, it's allowed. I won't forbid you, either. But I don't recommend it. You won't ever see the girls again. And frankly, you don't want to take the chance of the Gamemakers surprising you thirteen years down the line with a closely related tribute from another district. That would be irresistible entertainment for them. Even in the unlikely event that the girls are careful, it wouldn't be any better for you than the booze."

"The booze keeps the nightmares away."

"Sure it does."

There's nothing else to say on the subject. Gia sits with me in the train car until the sun sets, then packs me off to bed, since I'll have an early morning with the preps. I change into silk pajamas and crawl into bed. The bed on the train is narrower than the one at home, and it takes me a while to adjust to it. Once I do, I lie awake in the darkness, staring at the stars and shadows sliding past the window. The train stops once. All I can see is a tall metal tower. I have no idea what they're doing. I've just about decided to get up and have a look at the tower when we start moving again. I sigh. It's been a while since I've tried to get to sleep with no chemical help.

After what seems like forever, I finally slip into a thin sleep. I dream vaguely that I'm surrounded by groupies, and someone tells me I'm allowed to do anything I want with them. In the dream, this seems okay, until they turn into mutts with sharp claws and huge teeth, and start ripping me apart.

I wake up in a grayish pink dawn and jump out of bed, feeling in some way like the mutts are under it and coming after me. I stand by the window for a few minutes, breathing hard, until the idea starts to fade.

I need to ask for something to help me sleep deeper. Or maybe I should go to sleep in the day, when I'm not imagining things in the shadows. I guess I won't have that opportunity on the tour, though.

I look out the window. We are going around the edge of a large lake in the mountains. High up on the shore, there's an ancient, overgrown tumble of stones that looks like it was once the foundation of a grand house of some kind. I wonder who lived there, and what it was like to wake up every morning and look across the water. There must be people in the Capitol who can look across the lake there, but there are so many people there. This would be different. A large water bird lands and sends up a spray from the surface. I open the window. Birds are singing in the woods.

I want to get off the train, just jump out and run into the woods. Maybe one of those bands of violent out-district raiders will take me in. Hell, I'm not exactly a pacifist. I proved that in the arena. Maybe I'd fit right in. Maybe they live in the ruined house up there, and they're just getting up to hunt up breakfast now.

Of course, I'm pretty useless as a hunter. I can't hit the broad side of a barn, and I doubt I could outrun a wild animal, tackle it down, and slit its throat. So I'd probably starve.

But it looks so quiet out there. Maybe it would be okay to starve out in the woods. I could just wait until I got weak, then sit down and wait to slip away. I've seen people on the Seam starve. It's not pretty, but I think I could handle it. And hey, it's winter. Maybe I'd freeze to death first.

The door opens and I turn to find the teenage boy from the production team coming in, looking unconcerned until he turns around and sees me out of bed. "Oh!" he says. "I thought you'd be sleeping. They sent me to wake you up."

"Woke up on my own. Do you know what this lake is called?"

"They mostly don't name things in the out-districts. I have some old books, but even they don't list a lot of this stuff. I'm Plutarch Heavensbee. Gamemakers' apprentice." He holds out his hand, and I see a flash of paper with a mockingjay drawn on it. I recognize him from the banquet after I got out of the hospital. I remember Chaff telling me that they have a Gamemakers' apprentice on the team, and I guess this is probably him, but until Chaff or Gia tells me for sure, I decide not to make assumptions, in case he's a plant.

I shake his hand. "Haymitch Abernathy. You like old books?"

"Yeah. Old books, old papers… there's a whole stash of them in the Capitol library. Nobody ever uses them except for me." He opens my closet and starts checking the wardrobe against a list he has. I have no idea what's in this closet, honestly. They didn't bring any of my clothes from home. "Do you know that a country - the one that used to be where Panem is - actually started a revolution for the right to 'pursue happiness'? It's an old form of the language, and it took me a while to translate forward, and I still didn't believe it when I read it. But it's right there in black and white."

"Yeah, well, I've read stories by people who actually lived there. They didn't seem to get very far with the pursuit."

"Well, stories are… just stories." He gives me a condescending little smile.

"Except that they're put together by people who know what's going on around them, better than a bunch of historians would."

He shrugs. "Personally, I like poems, if I'm going to go for the artistic bit. I read some good ones yesterday. I think I'm going to share them with my girl. She knows lots of people who appreciate poetry."

I don't respond, though of course I know what he means. If Gia gave this boy my book, that must mean he's our inside spy, but something about him rubs me the wrong way. Maybe it's the way he shrugged off the idea that the stories had anything to offer. Or that condescending smirk, like I couldn't possibly have read the kind of papers he's talking about. I've read them in Capitol-approved translations, of course. It's not like we have the actual papers. But I've learned to read between the lines of what the Capitol decides it's okay for me to know… a skill I'll bet this well-put-together Capitol boy never even thought about.

He finally finds whatever my stylist, Lepidus, has decided I'm supposed to wear, and slings it over his arm. "Come on. Your preps are all set up. I'm jealous. They have this lotion in there… best smelling stuff I ever came across, and they won't let me have any. Apparently, it's your new scent."

"I have a scent?"

"Some signature thing. At least they picked a good smell."

I think about how much my house stinks when I don't clean it for a while. Doesn't sound like they picked anything representative of me.

Plutarch talks about fashion and television as we go up the length of the train to the prep cars. We grab pastries off a passing cart, then he stops at a door and tells me this is where I need to be. He goes on, strutting self-importantly, carrying my clothes to some other place.

I go in.

The prep area on the train is much fancier than the prep area I had for the Games last summer. Then, Beech Berryhill and I shared a utilitarian area. I had a canvas tub that had obviously been wheeled in just because they didn't have enough equipment for double the tributes. This time, it all resembles a very nice bathroom. It's a long room, the full length of a train car, and the fixtures are all gleaming brass. The tub seems to be either marble or something that looks an awful lot like it. There's a special sink that has a dip in it, which I think is for hair, since Medusa is messing around with it, and a comfortable looking reclining chair surrounded by little rolling tables covered with bottles I don't recognize.

There is some kind of cologne in the steam. I haven't worn much in the way of cologne. I figured it would all smell like flowers or something. But Plutarch's right - this one's not bad at all. Smells kind of like autumn, with falling leaves and rain. I have no idea what it's supposed to have to do with _me_, but I decide it will be okay if they put it on me.

"Do you like it?" Igerna asks. She's my skin care expert. "I helped design it. It's called Twelve. It's all the rage. It's the base scent for all the products we'll use. Well, at least the products that have scent."

"It could definitely be worse," I tell her. "What are we doing that didn't already get done yesterday?"

"Oh, honey, we barely scratched the surface yesterday," Fabiola says. "I have to clean your teeth - you'll be close enough for people to smell your breath - and your skin… oh, your skin is in terrible shape. You haven't been using your exfoliating settings, have you?"

Since I have no idea what she's talking about, I guess I haven't. There's no point in trying to delay things. I let them strip me down and start working.

First, there's a bath, full of scented moisturizers. It's not as harsh as the first bath at the Games - I don't have years' worth of coal dust embedded in my skin - but not quite as gentle as the second one. They don't pay much attention to me (in some ways, I'm grateful for this), and just talk while they turn me this way and that and scrub. Igerna has just broken up with her lover, and this is the main topic of conversation. Apparently, he didn't want "an adventure," which I gather to be something about sex, but never do figure out just what, since they all seem to know and aren't really thinking of me as being in the conversation. Fabiola suggests a few other men they all seem to know. One of these names causes Medusa to make a sound like an angry cat, though I guess from how they're talking, and the fact that Igerna licks her lips like she's contemplating a fine meal, that it means something else to them. I am folded over like an omelet, and they start working on the skin of my back.

After the bath, I'm allowed to put on underwear while they take care of my hair at the sink. It feels good to have someone washing my hair and caressing my head. They are now in the middle of an animated conversation about a soap opera that's just had a particularly tantalizing cliffhanger ending. I'm ashamed to admit that I've been watching the stupid thing - mostly drunk, but sometimes sober, if I just want to go brainless for a while - so I don't offer my opinion on the subject of whether or not Caius Lowell is actually dead from his second overdose in two months, or whether his girlfriend, Amica, will get caught after she murdered his dealer. I have watched the show for long enough to know that she will get caught, and he'll come out of his coma just in time to testify at her trial that she was only doing the world a favor. She'll be acquitted, then they'll move on to the next plot. It's a love triangle already brewing with Caius's best friend Rufus being caught between the lovely district-girl-secretly-hiding-in-the-Capitol (this is a common, but impossible, figure on Capitol television) and a dark and dangerous Avox boy who works in the tunnels under his apartment and has taken to appearing for maintenance when Rufus is home. Since neither choice will be permitted by the Capitol, I figure that Rufus is being written out of the show.

I am annoyed with myself for having a theory on the subject.

Prep takes the better part of two hours, and after it, I'm allowed to go eat (though I'm not allowed to put on my public appearance clothes until I'm finished, and will have one more hair session). When I get to the table, Gia hands me a stack of index cards. "This is the speech," she says. "Stick to it. Things are a little tense in Eleven."

"Tense?"

She looks around at the other people in the dining car, mostly camera crews and other members of the production team. "I don't have any details. But the word is that we're to be in and out as quickly as possible."

"Will Chaff and Seeder be there?"

"Maybe at the banquet, though it depends on a lot of things. As a rule, local victors aren't in the crowd during the speeches. They tend to draw too much attention. Ollie - Blight - was usually asked to put in only a short appearance at the banquet." She smiles and squeezes my hand. "I'll see what I can do. I know they're your friends."

She goes off to make calls.

Two women wearing camera harnesses giggle, one of them pointing after Gia. They whisper to each other, then look at me and burst out laughing again.

"You got something to say?" I ask them.

"Not at all. We just… heard that Pelagia Pepper takes very good _care_ of her victors." With this, they jostle each other outside. A few other people are smirking. I pick up a knife and smirk back at them. They quickly go back to their other business.

I go back to my car, but I'm still not allowed to put on my public appearance clothes, so I just lounge on my bed and poke around at a shelf full of glossy looking books that someone has thought to put here for me. The first one is a current hot seller about… me. There are pictures of Mom and Lacklen and Digger in it, and pictures from the Games. Though Digger is identified as my "special someone," the pictures make it quite clear that the author prefers a tragic love story with Maysilee. Looking at the cozy stills from the arena, I'd probably think it myself, if I didn't know that we were both scared to death, covered in injuries, and stinking to high heaven.

I decide not to read it. The next book is a romance novel, which I don't bother with (though the model on the cover has disgustingly familiar black curls). I finally settle on a detective story, though there's a lot of nonsense to sort through before it finally gets around to the crime.

I feel the train slow down just after someone brings me lunch, and I look out the window. We're coming in from the out-districts now. We're entering District Eleven.

The whole sky seems to be taken up by a high, electrified fence, guarded by armed Peacekeepers. This isn't like Twelve, where you just go through a small station to the other side of the fence to board the train. This isn't like anything I imagined, even in Panem.

The car I'm in passes through the gate, and I see Peacekeepers with machine guns lining the track, standing close enough that they can actually look in and see me. I don't know how Chaff could have come through here hiding on a train. There's an "inspection station," and I have a feeling that if this weren't a Capitol train, those Peacekeepers would be searching every inch of it.

We're clear of the fence soon enough, but its shadow seems to stay with us, even as we travel the miles and miles of fields between the fence and the main town. Sometimes I see people toiling in the fields, and once, I see a huge agricultural machine that does something I don't understand. There are rolling hills - I can see that the earth is actually red here, just like I've read about in books - and trees and flowers and animals, just like anywhere else.

But District Eleven isn't just like anywhere else, not with the shadow of that fence hanging over it.

District Eleven is a prison.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**  
The train depot for District Eleven is a wooden shack, far inside the fence. It isn't until I disembark that I notice a set of rods on either side of the tracks.

"What's that?" I ask Gia.

"Shock bars," she says. "In the big districts, where the main lines run in from the fence, sometimes people damage the tracks. Accidentally, of course. The rods are there to make sure the tracks stay viable. I highly recommend not going anywhere near them."

I think of Digger, slowly cooking from the electricity coursing through our fence. I push the thought away. "Is that why the tracks are mostly outside the districts?"

She nods. "Better safe than sorry."

"Mm-hmm."

She turns to me. She's painted up again, and wearing Capitol clothes. She's not wearing a wig, but her hair is pulled around and shellacked up into heart-shaped fans. She still looks pretty, but it's hard to figure her as the same person. "Now, smile and be polite, and don't make waves. If we can get through the speeches, maybe Chaff and Seeder can make it to the banquet."

"Right." I pick up the box of cookies from the Mellarks, and try to find a place for it. Gia takes it and moves it to her bag.

"I'll send that on ahead," she says. "Come on, now. Big smile."

I try it.

She winces. "Maybe not. You look like a crocodile when you do that. Maybe just try not to look annoyed. You're coming to see your friends."

I try not to look annoyed as the local delegation herds us into a pair of long black cars and drives us, under sullen armed guard, into the small collection of ancient looking buildings that serves as District Eleven's main town. The largest - and, by the looks of it, oldest - serves as the local Justice Building. We quickly pass a solemn crowd outside, most gathered as far under drooping trees as they can get. We're let out behind the building. It's actually hot outside, even this deep in winter. Lepidus has me in a sweater and woolen pants, and I'm sweating buckets. Fabiola spritzes me with cool water. Somewhere, I can hear the faint sound of the crowd, and then we're marched inside.

That's when everything changes.

Armed Peacekeepers line the large center room, and a frightened-looking woman in a cheap pink dress comes forward. "Welcome to District Eleven," she says, and looks over her shoulder. "I hope you'll enjoy your visit. I'm Mayor Myrtle Grandee. We're a little behind schedule, so you'll need to go out right away." She looks at the Peacekeepers quickly, then back at me. "Are you prepared?"

"He's prepped," Gia says. Her voice is strangely tight.

I turn to look at her, and I see that Peacekeepers have moved in behind her. Their guns are out. Others are surrounding Lepidus and my preps.

"He's prepared," Gia says again. "Go on, Haymitch. You know what to do."

I look at the Peacekeeper behind her. He smirks.

"Haymitch, the cards in your pocket have the speech," Gia says. "You just go on out there, and give it. And after, we'll all get ready for the banquet."

"What's going on?" I ask. It's obvious, but it's the only thing I can think of to say. I can't think of anything I've done - at least since I got on the train - that would suddenly make them pull guns on Gia. "Gia, what's happening?"

"You're giving your speech," a Peacekeeper says. "And someone out there thinks you might be prone to writing things on your own. Best to stick to what other people write."

I am shoved forward, and all I can see is my book of poems… the ones Plutarch was going to pass to people who liked things like that. The one I wrote in anger during long, drunken nights. They know about it. Gia gave it to Plutarch Heavensbee, and now they know.

He betrayed us.

I hit the door and it opens. On a huge screen across the square, I see myself staggering out, eyes wide, skin pale, sweat pouring down my neck. Flanking the screen are smaller ones, showing four children. Two girls, two boys. I remember something about them, but I don't know what. Did I kill them? Did I kill this district's children?

I don't think I did, but I suddenly can't remember anything except my knife going into someone's neck, coming out with strands of tissue attached to it… then not coming out at all the next time. I feel like I killed everyone with that knife. The other tributes. Gia. Danny. Mom and Lacklen. Digger. Everyone.

The crowd cheers on command.

For the first time since I left the arena, I consciously bring it to mind. I remember not being able to sleep, panicking because I couldn't remember how Digger wore her hair. Maysilee woke up and held me tight, and I remember that embrace now, the way her hair smelled, the way her ragged fingernails felt pressed against my neck. We promised each other that we'd look after one another's families, if one of us survived. I don't think she'd quibble about including Gia in that group. Maybe she'd even include Lepidus.

I swallow hard, straighten my shoulders, and make myself go to the podium, where the mayor is holding out one shaking hand.

I don't know where I find my voice to start speaking, but I do. I read Gia's cards carefully, not meeting anyone's eyes, or looking directly into the camera (I don't want to look up and be staring at myself). Gia has remembered the names of the four tributes - Huller and Cotton (who were supposedly my allies, through Chaff), and Sage and Wakerobin, who I barely met, though Gia is good enough at her job that she has produced specific things about them for me to "recall." I did actually talk to Huller and Cotton, but I don't add anything to Gia's cards.

I behave myself.

I see that the square is surrounded by Peacekeepers as much as the rotunda inside is.

Somehow, I make it to the end ("Even though I've had a hard time of it these past months, I am grateful for the advantages that the Capitol has given me, and grateful to the tributes - and the people - of District Eleven"). Mayor Grandee gives me a plaque commemorating my victory, with the congratulations of District Eleven on it. I don't know what I'm supposed to do with it.

I'm herded back inside.

The Peacekeepers surrounding my team lower their weapons.

"What's going on?" I ask Gia as soon as we've gotten moving toward the room where I'll be prepped for the banquet. "Where's Plutarch Heavensbee?"

She frowns, then seems to get what I'm saying. "Plutarch's where he's supposed to be - on the train, helping with the plans."

"But - "

She puts her hand over her mouth and makes a show of giggling. "Oh, it seems that someone noticed your talent might have… well, had a little help. I told them you were just too busy to come up with anything entertaining. But someone has a silly idea that we hid your real talent."

I don't dare stop walking. So Plutarch didn't betray us… but someone is suspicious. Suspicious enough to keep all of us under guard. "Well, that's dumb," I say as loudly as I can without actually _looking_ like I'm trying to get attention. "Anyone who knows me knows I don't have any talent, anyway, unless you count drinking. Is that a talent? Because I can drink you under the table for them, if they really want to see it."

Gia gives me a look of perfectly genuine annoyance. "I don't _think_ so, Haymitch."

"Maybe _they_ should have a drink. Mellow them out a little bit."

"Maybe you should just get to prep."

"How much more prep do I _need_?"

"Ahem," Lepidus catches up to us. "I may have, um, underestimated the climate difference between Twelve and Eleven. You're a little… well, somewhat the worse for wear. Come now, boy."

He nudges me out of Gia's orbit and up a rickety staircase. My preps are waiting in a room on the second floor, and I'm grateful for a cool sponge down. Lepidus frantically goes through suits, trying to find something lightweight enough to get me through the evening, and Medusa treats my hair - which is going into tight ringlets and thoroughly destroying her plan for it - like a medical emergency. Water is forced down my throat as though I've been wandering in the desert for months.

Lepidus finally settles on a pair of light colored cotton pants and a dark red silk shirt. He tries to put a giant cravat around my neck, but I convince him that it would be too hot.

"It needs… something," he says. "Jewelry, maybe? No, a hat…"

By the time he finishes with me, I have a slouchy straw hat, a garish ring, and a chain around my neck. I look like I should be playing a second rate hoodlum on a Capitol crime show. Maybe I just came into some money after fencing stolen goods, and now I'm trying to impress the boss's moll, guaranteeing me a quick death, with my body thrown in the lake.

There's a knock at the door. Gia comes in without waiting and looks at me, trying not to smile. "Ah," she says. "You know, they say you should always take off one accessory before you go out. Why don't we lose the gold chain?" She takes it off without waiting for Lepidus, who could certainly point out that she looks like she's wearing the whole accessory drawer at the moment, then hands me a brown bag.

"From Chaff," she says. "He didn't get an invitation to the banquet, but sends his thanks for the cookies."

I look inside. It's another loaf of the sweet brown bread he sent me. It's wrapped in a piece of paper.

I take it out, wondering if it's a message - it would be pretty brazen to send me one here, even if Gia's with us - but it looks like a recipe.

_For your friend Danny,_ Chaff has written. _We heard him say that he wanted the recipes. Expect them everywhere. This is Seeder's personal recipe. Enjoy it while it's warm!_

"Well," Gia says. "I think he looks just perfect. You did a lovely job, Lepidus." She puts a hand to her mouth, alarmed. "But my goodness, the four of you look dreadfully hot. You'll need to clean yourselves up a little before you go in. I need to prep Haymitch on the banquet, anyway."

Fabiola frowns. "Well… I suppose we should. You'll make sure he brushes his teeth if he eats any of that bread?"

"Of course."

"Will she need to tuck my shirt in and tie my shoes for me, too?"

"Only if you untuck or untie," Lepidus says. "And I advise you to do neither." He raises an eyebrow. "Maybe one of the girls should stay. For propriety."

"Don't be ridiculous," Gia says.

"I'm talking about image. People talk, Pelagia."

"People always talk. It's what they do. Now, go, get ready."

I wait until Lepidus and the preps are gone. "What's that all about? Rumors? And one of the camera girls said… something."

She sighs. "I was involved with my victor in District Seven. Everyone knows it."

"So?"

"So… it was a scandal. Not that we were involved - I can do as I please, as far as that goes - but when I tried to get permission for him to move to the Capitol with me… it didn't go over well. Suddenly… let's say I know something about what the news can make up on very little evidence. That's how I ended up in Twelve."

"I'm not him."

"No. But I did live with you for three weeks."

"I was barely functional."

"I've kept a lid on how badly off you were." She sits down. "Caesar Flickerman is helping to stomp the rumors whenever he can. He likes you a lot. But they're out there."

"If it got you in trouble, why did you come out?"

"Because you needed someone on your side with a little firepower." She shrugs. "I don't have much. But what I have is yours."

"Thanks." I take out the bread and break it in half, meaning to give her some to go on, though I'm not sure if she can actually eat in the corset she's wearing. Something falls to the floor.

I reach down and grab it. It's a small, rolled up bit of paper.

"Oh, this looks good!" Gia says enthusiastically. I've never had District Eleven bread before."

I take her cue and praise the bread as well, while I unroll the paper. It's in my shorthand. The symbol for stairs, four times. A clock. A hand. A shoe. A bug with a line through it. Not anything that actually looks like those things, of course, at least not explicitly. It wouldn't have been very quick if I had to carefully draw things. But I know what they are.

I close my eyes and picture the ride around the Justice Building. There is a clock, not working, up at the top of a tower. I'm guessing four staircases. The hand has to be Chaff. The shoe… Seeder's talent is dance. And no bugs. That would make sense.

I haven't been able to teach Gia the code yet, so she just looks at it curiously. I fold my left hand down as far as I can and turn the arm around so it looks like a stump, then nod up at the ceiling while she goes on about how delicious the bread is, and nods.

We spend the next half hour actually prepping for the banquet. Gia makes me practice small talk, which I'm not very good at. She turns on some music to make sure I actually do know how to dance (she's satisfied with my ability to pick up steps quickly, but hopes they won't try anything _too_ complicated). Finally, she gives me a frank list of subjects that I'm forbidden to discuss, including the situation in District Twelve, how it really feels to be in the arena, and what I really think about Snow and the Capitol. She gives me a sympathetic look - I'm guessing she has the same restrictions - but there's no room for discussion. During this, we eat the bread. Gia rips Chaff's message in half, and we each eat part of it.

We go downstairs.

The banquet isn't as lavish as a Capitol banquet would be, but it's got more than enough to eat. Someone has brought in a side of beef, and the whole hall is redolent of its roasting. Around it are the fruits of District Eleven - apples, pears, peaches, and of course the standard potatoes and carrots. There are other things I don't recognize, but I try to taste a little bit of everything, and compliment as many people as I can. After we eat, the floor is cleared, and a band starts to play. There seem to suddenly be a lot of giggling girls. Some might be from Eleven, but others, I figure for Capitol liaisons. One of these practically jumps on me and drags me out to dance.

"I love the victory tour!" she says. "Last year I danced with Brutus. You're much more handsome."

"Um… thanks."

"I loved it in the Games when you hunted down that girl from One. She was crazy, wasn't she?"

"Yeah, I…" I try to pull away, but she has an iron grip on my hand.

"And when you kept running after taking an axe! Do you have a scar? Can I see it?"

"They cleaned up the scar," I say. "I should dance with everyone…"

"Oh, there are plenty of songs. And who says we just have to dance?"

"Um… I do."

She frowns. "Aren't I pretty enough?"

"You're very pretty. But I… I have a girl back home."

"Oh, a new one? That hasn't been on the news. What's her name?"

"I don't think she wants to be in the news," I say, and pray that no one will press further. I should have asked Kay Donner if I could say we were dating. It would make these vultures happy. Then again, given the last time Kay dropped by, it might not be the best of ideas.

The girl finishes out the dance with me, but seems put out by the whole subject. I'm grabbed by another girl, this one with a somewhat franker offer of what she wants to do with me, then by a third, who is at least more subdued, and mostly wants to know if I really learned that I loved Maysilee or not at the end. I assure her that I loved Maysilee very much. She doesn't ask about Digger, even though Digger's death made the news.

One of the native girls from Eleven (or at least, so I assume) gets hold of me next. She wants to know everything about the arena, because she's afraid she'll be reaped. After that, there's a girl from the Capitol - who may actually be a young woman with a job here; it's hard to tell - who says she's written a movie where Maysilee and I both lived, but had to be moved to different districts, but we find each other again as adults. What would I think of a movie like that?

Gia cuts in halfway through the song. "Enjoying yourself?" she asks.

"Oh, yeah. Talking about dead girls I love is always a good time."

"I'm sorry, honey. It'll be over soon."

"Until District Ten."

She doesn't bother to argue. "A girl named Calico is going to ask you to dance," she says quietly, pulling me a little closer. "She'll suggest that you go off to get some air. Go with her."

"I thought I wasn't indulging."

"You're not, but if you can handle people _thinking_ you are, I'll cover for you while you're out… getting air. It's more or less expected that an escort would do that, anyway. And you have someplace to be, and people you want to talk to. Are you all right with it?"

I think about it. Given the way they've been showing me on television anyway, I guess adding "promiscuous" to the list isn't going to do any more harm than has already been done.

The next girl isn't Calico - it's a Capitol girl who works as a secretary to the seed master and plans to visit my arena and cry over Maysilee's death site next month - and neither is the one after that, who's drunker than I normally would be. I am in the process of trying to pry her hand off my belt buckle when a hand comes between us, followed by the body of a slim girl. She is one of the most beautiful girls I've ever seen, with dark brown eyes roughly the size of dinner plates, and black hair braided through with gold ribbons. She pushes the Capitol secretary away and gives her a nasty looking smile.

"That could get you in trouble," I say.

She shrugs. "I'm in trouble a lot. It's practically a second address. I'm Calico Rays."

"Haymitch."

"Yeah, I recognized you from the poster outside." She sneaks in closer, so aggressively that if Gia hadn't told me she was going to do this, I'd probably be trying to defend myself out of habit. She presses her lips to my face, just beside my ear. "They're upstairs waiting," she whispers, then moves just a little bit and kisses me properly. It's the first real kiss I've had since before Digger died and I suddenly wish I was really going to "get a little air" with her.

Instead, I just follow her out, while people snicker behind my back. I see Gia moving in to do something to cover for me, but I don't know what. Calico leads me quickly up the stairs to the prep room. She leans against the door and pulls me to her. "You're going to take the stairs at the end of this hall. Then go to the right, and you'll find another set in the middle of the hall. The door is shut, but it's unlocked. Go up two flights."

"Thanks."

She kisses me again.

"What was that for?"

"Sorry. Probably shouldn't have, but I wanted to." She winks. "I'll go in there and make a little noise - "

"What?"

"My boyfriend's waiting. I'll get grief about that last kiss later." She winks. "Go on, now. We'll be the talk of the tour until you hit your next stop, I'm sure."

She opens the door and disappears into the shadows of my prep room.

I follow her directions upstairs.

The building is old and decrepit, and I have to look out the window once - very carefully - to get my bearings. I'm toward the front, the side where the crowd was gathered. There are a lot of closed doors in this hallway, and I can't very well just go along rattling them, so I have to count on some kind of spatial sense to get the right one, since they aren't marked. That would be too easy. I finally get to the one I estimate to be under the tower, and I try the knob.

It turns.

The staircase here is obviously disused. Old paintings of farms and great houses lean drunkenly from the wall. It all smells faintly of cinnamon, or at least something that reminds me of cinnamon. It makes me think of Danny's place, which is weirdly comforting.

At the top of the second flight of stairs, there are two doors, but between them, there's a trapdoor in the ceiling. A ladder is already down from it, and I climb up. I've barely cleared the door when Chaff grabs me in a hug. "How are you doing, Abernathy?"

"I'm good, I - "

Seeder takes me and hugs me even tighter. "I've been so worried."

"I'm okay," I say. "Really, I am."

Seeder leans in and smells my breath. "Well, at least you're not drinking."

"You sound like Gia."

"Bless that girl if she's got you sober."

Chaff rolls his eyes. "Personally, I don't know how you're doing it. I'm bringing you a couple bottles of good stuff next summer."

"Thanks."

"You are _not_," Seeder says. "Bad enough you do it without keeping the boy on it." She pulls over a crate for me to sit on. "We got your note. Things are that bad in Twelve? Hangings?"

I nod. "Mostly kids from the Seam. Looks like they're trying to stir up old troubles."

"Are they succeeding?" Chaff asks.

I nod. "We're definitely not all working together anymore. It's a bunch of town rabble-raisers, a bunch of vandals from the Seam, then me and Danny trying to… you know… think bigger."

Chaff nods like he's seen it all before. "The Capitol knows how to play that game. No one's rich here, exactly, but you can work up north in the hills, or down south where you'll bake all day in the hot sun. And there's orchards and fields, too. In Four, they have the fisherman and the sailors. In Three, it's engineers and factory workers. Paper mills and lumberjacks in Seven. I bet it's the same everywhere. And I probably ought to give you a heads-up - if they manage to get along with each other, they're going to take a nice long look at your big house in Victor's Village. It's the Capitol's nuclear option, but I doubt they'd refuse to use it, if things looked bad."

"How'd they build it to work like that?"

"They didn't," Seeder says. "It's just something that's there, and they exploit it."

Chaff sits down. "Now, fond as we are of you, we didn't call you up here to catch up or talk political theory. We can do that next summer."

"And hold onto that," Seeder adds. "Remembering that you're going to see your friends will help."

I try not to think about this.

Chaff goes on. "The word went out pretty naturally that your friend wants recipes. So you're going to be presented with recipes from the victors everywhere. You look on every recipe for a feather or flying or some other damned bird thing - those are the victors who are on our side. In districts where there's more than one, they'll put on one symbol for each of them."

"Isn't that kind of… obvious?"

"Yeah." He sighs. "If anyone asks, they're about remembering your friend. The one the birds attacked. Are you clear on that?"

"You want me to use Maysilee's death as a rebel code."

"I'm sorry, honey," Seeder says. "It's just -"

"No. Maysilee would like that, actually. She was a rebel before I was."

"Good."

"They have… well, I wrote poems. It really sounds dumb, saying it like that, but - "

"But they're on their way to Capitol rebels," Seeder says. "We know. I had a chance to read a few when I saw Plutarch earlier."

"Boy's a piece of work," Chaff mutters.

"He's risking a lot to get rebellion going in Snow's back yard," Seeder says crossly. "They may not hang Capitol rebels, but they do send them off to re-education camps if they get caught. We've lost a few that way. I don't know what they do to them in those camps, but they come back… wrong. And totally loyal to Snow. Plutarch knows that, and he's risking it anyway."

"Doesn't make him any less a blowhard," Chaff says.

Seeder shakes her head. "It doesn't matter. Haymitch, you gather up the information you get on the tour. Give the recipes to your friend like they expect you to. And he can send Chaff the information with an order of those hermit cookies, because I plan to order them every month, and it has nothing to do with the rebellion. We'll take care of it from there. It'll be our first actual census of rebel victors. We can't exactly talk much in the Capitol, so there's a lot of guesswork."

"Okay."

Chaff reaches into his pocket and pulls out a key. He hands it to me. "This is the key to this building. I've sat on the local council lately, so I had one, and I copied it. If you get a chance to come down here - you may be able to work it out with workers from Six - then this is where you'll come. Right here to this room. I'm the only one who comes up here - I say it's a thinking place - and I sweep it for bugs every month. So far, they haven't thought of it. Just send me word by the cookie express first."

I pocket the key, having no intention of using Danny to get word to them that I'm taking an illegal, unauthorized trip. I don't actually intend to _take_ an illegal, unauthorized trip. But who knows? I might need to.

Seeder looks out a dusty window. "You better get back downstairs," she says. "Don't forget to collect Calico, if you can pry her out of that other boy's arms."

"Okay."

She squeezes my hand. "We will see you next summer," she says. "It's messy and just as terrible as you think to be a mentor. But we're all in it with each other, and we help each other as much as we can if the worst happens."

"_When_ it happens, you mean?"

"Generally speaking," Chaff says before Seeder can spin something more positive. "Every mentor loses at least one tribute, and most lose both. There's no good about it. But you're not alone for it."

I nod. We don't say goodbye. I go back down the ladder, collect up Calico from the prep room, where I see someone else quickly climb out the window, then take her back downstairs. Cameras flash at me. The night goes on, and at the end of it, Gia finds me, guides me through the goodbyes, and gets me back to the train.

We head on for District Ten.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**  
I don't sleep very well on the train. I'm too tired not to sleep at all, but it's mostly drifting from place to place in my mind, visiting the things I've seen. I'm living in the woods by the lake I saw this morning, dancing with Calico, facing the huge screens with the faces of dead kids on them. At one point, I'm dancing with Calico under the screens at the edge of the lake, then the screens disappear and the dream takes a somewhat more pleasant direction, but the train turns and I wake up enough to disrupt it.

It's not quite dawn when I finally give up trying. My preps take something to wake themselves up; I'll ask if I can have some if I need to do anything today. No one seems to be running in to wake me up, so I put on a robe and leave my car. I don't know where I mean to go, but I guess the last car is good enough. Maybe watching the world slip by will put me to sleep.

When I get there, I find Gia awake, too, looking avidly out the window at a large body of water to our west.

"What's that?" I ask.

"River Bay," she says. Her voice has a kind of dreamy tone to it. "The Mississippi flooded almost four hundred miles up its course, more than a hundred miles wide, but it's still the Mississippi and -"

"The Mississippi?"

She smiles. "We need to get you some better old books. It's the greatest river in the country. It used to be the eastern border of Panem, before we so graciously allowed Districts Eleven to Thirteen to join us. There's only one bridge. We'll get to it this afternoon. After that, we're on the Rotation."

"The what?"

"The old Panem train system. All roads lead to the Capitol - via District Six. On that side of the river, the districts aren't connected to each other directly. The trains go through a central switch point. The tracks go out like spokes of a wheel - which is inconvenient for anything other than the Victory Tour, but it helps the government keep track of inter-district shipping."

In other words, it's a checkpoint, and another way to make sure we don't talk to each other. "So… we're just going to keep looping through the middle?"

"Most of the crossings are scheduled at night, except when we get to Six and it's time to show it off. And we'll have the high track, so we won't have to wait for anything. I doubt you'll notice."

"So it's _in_ Six? They're not worried about it getting… damaged?"

"It's just outside Six. The workers are trucked in every day, like they are into your mines."

The entrance to the mines _is_ in Twelve, but Gia's right - the miners are trucked underground further than most of them can keep track of. It definitely goes way under the fence. There are stories about miners who've tried to escape through the side tunnels, only for miners generations later to find their bones… or hear their maddened ghosts wailing in the complete darkness. Daddy used to tell us those when he'd been drinking a lot. Mom would make him hush up.

I look out at the water. "So, what's so special about the Mississippi?"

"Rafts."

"Rafts?"

She nods, then softly says, "Other places do seem so cramped up and smothery, but a raft don't. You feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft."

"What?"

"It's a book, Haymitch. Not an easy to find one. Why don't you keep yourself busy for a while trying to figure that out? You could use a puzzle."

"What's it about?"

"Escaping." She grins. "And since the track to District Ten is pretty long, you have a day to escape preps and banquets and most of the cameras. Maybe a quick shot at lunch to keep the audience happy. For myself, I intend to spend my downtime daydreaming about rafts."

"Sounds good," I say, and just watch the River Bay go by.

"Did you need me to do something else?"

"No. You've been doing everything."

"Haymitch… I'm here to help you. It's my job. Oddly enough, it's also what I want to do."

Birds flock over the bay, twirling around each other, diving for food. "Could I get the kill list?"

"The kill list? From the Games?"

"I need to remember who I killed. Yesterday, I couldn't remember if I killed the tributes from Eleven. I feel like I can't remember their names. I don't want to say the wrong thing. Especially if people are holding guns on you."

Gia is quiet for a long time, then says, "Haymitch, you got through the Games with three kills, all of them arguably in self-defense. You mostly ignored the other tributes. The three boys who jumped you - Maysilee killed one of them - and that crazy girl from One. They were Districts One, Two, and Four, if you want a warning."

"I remember more than that."

"But there weren't more, not on your head. I'll get you the list, if it will help."

I nod.

We ride in silence, watching the birds on the bay, until I fall asleep. I dream that I'm back in District Twelve. I haven't been reaped, and I am spending the day with Digger, down at the lake (which is now as large as River Bay). She tells me that she has a raft, and we can sail it on the Mississippi. She can hunt, and I will build us a shelter. As soon as we have everything set up, we can send for Mom and Lacklen. She goes on spinning pretty dreams, and I try to tell her that she's dead and so are Mom and Lacklen, but she won't listen. I finally give up and let her spin.

I wake up much later - the sun is strong - with a blanket draped over me. Gia's gone, but she's left a book on the seat where she was sitting, with one of her hair pins as a marker. This one is topped with a shiny little ladybug decoration. It would barely show up in her red hair, and it probably cost more than all of Digger's wardrobe put together.

I can't seem to summon up any anger at this. All I can think is that it would have looked nice with the red dress Digger was buried in. I should have gotten her a hair pin, too. I don't know what I'd have put it in, since a lot of her hair fell out when the dress went onto her, but I still should have gotten it.

I look at Gia's book. It's a perfectly acceptable book for a Capitol girl to be reading - a murder mystery, where the detective is a lady who works in the Museum of the In-gathering (I recognize it from the picture on the cover). If she's leaving me a message with it, it goes over my head entirely.

I go to the dining car.

Gia is there with my preps, and they're watching television. I'm on it. She looks up sheepishly as Plutarch Heavensbee comes on and says, "Well, it looks like our victor was welcomed very warmly in District Eleven!" I'm shown exiting with Calico. Plutarch continues to voice it over. "The young lady is Calico Rays, a cousin of Haymitch's fellow victor, Seeder, apparently well-known in District Eleven for making everyone - well, every man - feel welcome."

"He can't say that!"

"Let Seeder handle it," Gia advises me.

"But - "

"But nothing. It's her family. Let it go."

I sit down and fume, and the attendants bring in lunch. Gia keeps looking out the window. We're no longer traveling along the bay. The water to the west is now clearly a river.

Around two, the train starts to curve around toward the river, and I see a tall, white bridge against the sky. Gia calls me over to the window.

"Look," she says. She points out across the river, where I see an island pointing downriver at us. At the tip of it is a tipped over statue. "I passed that coming out here the first time, and I looked it up. When the Catastrophes were happening, that island turned into a major fort for… one of the sides. The books aren't really clear about who was fighting. Before the last fall, they thought they had control. They built a huge statue out of brass to warn people off."

"Didn't work, huh?"

"Apparently not." She points up to the northwest. "That's where your Shipping River comes in. You could follow it all the way up to District Twelve."

I look at the huge river that's meeting the Mississippi here, just past the bridge. I can't imagine that it flows anywhere near home. It's just not coming together for me. The land we're in now is flat and muddy, going to a line of dark, even forest as it leaves the river banks. I can't even see the mountains in the distance.

"Beetee showed me maps in the library," I tell her. "But I didn't have long to look. My dad's dictionary had maps, too. But… I guess I didn't know how big it was."

"It's hard to know when you're stuck inside a fence."

We actually manage to have a decent day on the train. No one complains about my lack of a reasonable talent, and Gia lets me spend the afternoon reading the Odyssey and pretending that I know something about the ancient Greek it's translated from. I learn the alphabet. We have a nice dinner, and over a huge dessert, Lepidus promises that he's looked into the predicted weather in the districts we'll be visiting, and promises that he won't put me in anything inappropriate again.

"As long as I don't have to wear the parade costume, I'm fine," I say.

He laughs. "Yes, well, there will be no more of that. That was Drake's idea, to get you sponsors."

"Where is he, anyway? I didn't think he'd want to miss the cameras."

Gia and Lepidus look at each other warily, and I realize that they've been waiting for me to ask this.

I sigh. "What is it? Did something happen to him?"

"No," Gia says. "He was… well, traditionally, the district mentor goes."

"Yeah?"

"And, well, _you're_ the District Twelve mentor now. Drake's been re-assigned to Six, since they don't have any victors. He was invited for form's sake, since he mentored you, but he…"

"Wasn't in a rush to see me again?" I finish.

"You won by ignoring every word he said," Lepidus tells me. "And everyone knows it."

"I'm sorry," Gia says.

I laugh. "Oh, right. I just couldn't wait to see Drake again."

"We thought it might hurt your feelings. That's why we didn't bring it up."

Somehow, after losing my family and my girl and watching my district get stepped on by a sadistic Head Peacekeeper, the idea that I'd have any feelings about being ignored by a man I never liked in the first place is funny. I try not to laugh, because they both seem so sincere about protecting me from this slight, but it doesn't work. After a minute, Gia joins me. Lepidus still seems confused, but I'm apparently his boss now, so he timidly smiles.

"If you're taking direction from the mentor," I say, "no more of those costumes. Dress 'em up like miners if you have to, but… you know."

"You'll lose sponsors," he says. "I hate to say it, but it's true."

"Did people really sponsor me because I was in tight pants?"

Gia shakes her head. "No. It wasn't until you teamed up with Maysilee that you started getting sponsors at all. But she had a few lined up from her costume, to be fair."

I would rather not understand the implications of that, so I ignore it. "So they sponsored me once it looked like I had the brains to team up with a good shot? Or did I get someone else's sponsors?"

"No." Gia thinks about this for what seems a very long time, then says, "It was when you started talking to her. I started getting calls from people who aren't normally sponsors. They were under the impression that you were a nice boy. They liked the way you and Maysilee were working together."

"According to Drake, it was pocket change," Lepidus says.

"A lot of pocket change put together turns into a pretty nice sum."

"They thought I was _nice_?" I shake my head. "And what did they think they were going to do? Save both of us?"

Gia smiles. "They don't think that far ahead," she says. "You're going to have to get used to that idea. Let them think they can make the whole difference, even if it doesn't make any sense. Then, you'll get money for your tributes."

I look down at the large dish of ice cream in front of me, and realize that if I eat another bite, I'm going to throw up. I may anyway. I didn't mean to start talking about sponsors and mentoring. Faces from home flash through my head. I'm talking about kids I know - people I'll be taking to die next year.

I excuse myself and go to my car. Try to sleep. I'm still awake when the train passes through a brightly lit area, and I feel it turn gently. Sometime after we pass this, I finally drift off. I dream that Danny and Digger have been reaped, and I am meeting with faceless sponsors (all of them sitting high above me, in jeweled thrones), telling them that whichever of them is their favorite is the one I'm going to try and save. One of them complains that Danny's costume isn't attractive enough, and another asks a lot of very personal questions about Digger's skills, all veiled as Games-related. Digger tries to tell me that she's dead anyway, and I don't need to save her, but in dream logic, that doesn't work. The whip marks on Danny's back open up and start bleeding.

I am not sorry when Plutarch comes in to wake me up and get me to prep.

We pass through the District Ten fence while Medusa is doing my hair. It's nothing like the fence in Eleven - more like the one in Twelve, though it doesn't come anywhere near a town. The gate is a guard post, but not a fortress. There are only about a dozen Peacekeepers flanking the train. I can see the shock rails on either side of the tracks here, and beyond them, fenced in pastures. Cows lean their heads out to look at the train on one side. On the other, I see dirty things that it takes me a minute to recognize as sheep. I have heard of them and know what they are, but they don't look exactly like I thought they would. They're more yellowish than white. In the far distance, I see someone on a horse, but that's the only human I spot until we reach the main town almost four hours later. It rises up abruptly from the plains, with no suburban detritus around it, even though it isn't fenced in.

"They don't want to waste field space," Gia explains. The town is actually pretty densely populated. Mostly high rise apartments for people who work in the slaughterhouses and meat-packing plants. And the office workers and liaisons. Other people live out on the spreads."

She doesn't have to tell me that this is yet another of the district-level social conflicts. I'd guess the people crammed into town want space, and the people out on what she calls "the spreads" have to deal with interruptions in power and supply shipping, plus whatever annoyances the Capitol adds to their job of raising animals to kill, and figure the town people get a break.

Gia gives me the kill list from this district along with my speech cards. The two girls, Jilly Chubb and Clara Knox, died at the Cornucopia. Clovis Wilbore, who Maysilee said kept sheep, was killed by Filigree Simms. Wyland Belcher… well, he tried to kill Maysilee before she met up with me, and she shot him with one of her darts. I'll have to be careful there.

I give the assigned speech. There are no Peacekeepers with guns to my team's heads, but I suspect that's because I've been allowed to see them once. They will always be there inside my mind.

The mayor of District Ten - a whip-thin man wearing a string tie - tells me that they don't hold with such high-falutin' things as banquets here, but we're going to have the best barbecue I've ever seen.

Since I've never seen a barbecue, I am perfectly honest when I tell him I'm sure it will be. They give me another plaque. I really have no idea what to do with these things. They're heavy. They might make good blunt weapons if I need them. Beyond that, I'm stumped.

The barbecue ends up being a big, outdoor party at the edge of town, under a pavilion tent painted with scenes of cows and sheep and horses out in the fields. Sides of beef and mutton roast over open fires, and someone pulls out a fiddle and plays it well enough that I think old Hickory Mayne from home would be jealous. If it weren't for Wyland Belcher's family sitting in a corner and glaring at me, I'd probably actually like it here.

Earl Bates, the victor from the thirty-first Games, introduces himself and gives me a bread recipe. There are no feathers or birds on it. Another victor - with the unlikely name of Toffy Taggart - isn't able to make the party because one of his cows is in labor. "Maybe you'll meet him up at the Games," Bates says. "He's a good enough fella."

I get to meet Earl's wife Hilda, and their twin eleven-year-old boys, Donald and Ralph. All of this seems very nice, and I'm enjoying myself, until Donald tells me solemnly that he and Ralphie will be in the reaping next year, just like everyone else, and he hopes he'll be as brave as his dad was - and as I was, of course - if he goes to the Games. Earl forces a smile and tells him not to invite a jinx. I think again about people I care about being sent in. I can't even imagine worrying about sending one of my own kids.

Gia, who has been hovering but not interfering, decides that it's time for me to meet some of the other dignitaries. As I leave, I see Earl put his head in his hands.

The party ends at ten-thirty. Livestock have to be fed early, no matter who's visiting town, and people have to go home. I am loaded back onto the train, and we head off into the darkness. I have an early morning tomorrow, too.

District Nine is colder than District Ten, and the town is right at the fence line (Gia tells me that they have an internal rail system to ship the grain). I am presented with a sunflower here, from the family of Kitty Norton, a little girl Maysilee and I tried to help by leaving her a backpack with some food in it. This didn't make the highlight reel, but apparently it went out on the live show. Her parents assure me that it's not my fault that she and her ally, Arav Caper, were promptly attacked by the Careers trying to get the food. It's the first I've heard of this, and I try not to be horrified, since they're not blaming me. I ask Plutarch to put the sunflower in my car, and keep it as long as it can be kept. The other three tributes died at the volcano and the Cornucopia.

The bread recipe comes from one of the two victors in the neighborhood, Darla Grimes. She sneers at my sunflower, and I decide I don't like her much. She is also in the company of a man about half her age, who does everything she tells him. There are no feathers or birds here, either.

I get a little tour of the district on their internal train, since the banquet is at a gathering hall in the center of the district - the center of Victors' Village, in fact. Once, the train breaks down - there is much gnashing of teeth about this, but I don't care - and I go out into the field alone (though it's possible to see for miles here, so I'm sure I am being watched). I stand in the middle of a fallow winter field and look up at the sky. There's no break in the horizon, no rise of the land. I can see a gray shape far in the distance, and I realize that it's an entire rain shower that's nowhere near me. Looking around, I see two more. Further north in the district, I'm told there's snow. It all seems impossibly big, and it makes me feel very small.

The banquet is plain and unadorned. It seems to mainly be attended by Capitol officials, and, of course, the victors. The servers seem surly. I don't blame them. Both victors treat them like dirt on their shoes.

While we're eating, I ask Darla about this, though I try not to make it sound rude. She shrugs and says, "I went through hell to stop spending my life pulling rocks out of the ground and filling prairie dog holes, and they sit here judging me for not doing it voluntarily anymore. They think it's uppity of me to take correspondence classes from the Capitol University." She makes a face. "Screw 'em. And screw anyone from your district who tells you how you can spend your own money, too."

This bit of economic philosophy is about all I get out of District Nine, other than the plaque and a vague sense of discomfort. I notice one girl at the banquet who has her hair cut messily, but I don't comment on it. It seems like a rude thing to notice.

When we get to Eight the next day, I see several more girls with their hair cut the same way. A couple of them in the crowd seem to be poor girls from the textile factories, but there are several painted-up Capitol girls at the banquet who actually seem to be wearing wigs that are _deliberately_ cut that way.

"What's that about?" I ask Medusa.

She looks surprised that I'm talking to her at her table at the back, even though she talks to me plenty while she's working on me. "Um… it's the rage since the Games," she says. "It's called the rough-cut, or the saw-bob." She frowns, apparently expecting me to understand it immediately. "Because of what Maysilee did with her hair?"

I have no idea what to say to this. "That was… her hair was wrecked… she wouldn't have…"

Medusa shrugs. "Well, it's quite the thing. I can get a good bit of money for hacking some girl's hair off with a special knife."

"A… special knife?"

"Well, they pay more if it's really one of the arena knives. I have three of them back at my salon."

"Do they pay even more if it was used to kill someone first?"

Even Medusa seems to realize that I'm being sarcastic, as she excuses herself and goes back to her chicken soup.

There's only one victor in District Eight, from the eighteenth Games, named Woof. I assume at first that this is a nickname, like Blight, but he says it isn't. He's in his late forties now, and, though he has a wife, he has no children. "I imagine you know why," he says quietly.

"Yeah," I say. "I guess I do."

He hands me a recipe with one very large feather drawn across the top. There are also three symbols I don't recognize - a box with a little flag on it, half an arrow, and something that looks like the top of a three-pronged fork. He doesn't offer an explanation, and I have no guesses.

There's not a lot to see in District Eight. Woof takes me up to an observation deck in the justice building, where I can see the lights of the city through a gently falling snow. The city is right on the western bank of the northern Mississippi. It's no bigger than District Twelve in terms of space, but has ten times the people, living on top of each other in anthill apartment houses, which Woof implies strongly are falling apart, badly heated, and filled with failing plumbing. "But not to worry," he says bitterly. "The cockroaches eat most of the filth." I can see Victors' Village on the riverbank, a tiny little park-like area that only Woof has access to. I can sympathize.

"Lonely out there for you, too?" he asks.

"Little bit."

He nods wisely. "You should find some company other than the bottles they're showing you with on television. That's not going to help."

I don't point out that any company I have keeps dying in violent ways. That's been on television, too.

We go back down to the banquet and the dance, and I learn one of their traditional dances, which whirls around in a circle, getting faster with each repetition of the melody. Outside, the weather takes a bad turn, and the gentle snowfall becomes harsh and windblown. My team is taken back to the train, but there's no way to move out when we're supposed to.

We're still stalled in the morning, and no one comes to wake me up. I am dreaming about cockroaches and blizzards and having children whose names come out of the reaping balls, but I am exhausted, and I can't seem to make myself get out of bed until the sun is on my face too brightly too ignore. The wind is still whistling around the train, but it's perfectly warm inside.

I get up and go to the dining car, where I have brunch by myself, since it's eleven-fifteen and no one else is at meal time. In the back car, the windows aren't pulled back, but I can still see out of them. District Eight is pretty well buried in snow, but workers have been called to the tracks to clear them. Many of them seem to be children. A little girl pulling snow out from around the train looks up and smiles at me, giving me a friendly wave. A Peacekeeper pulls her away before I can return it. I decide to see if they'll let me help. Maybe it could be a good camera moment or something.

I don't see Gia in any of the places I usually expect to find her, so I go to her private car to ask about going out to help. I hear her moving around before I get there, muttering under her breath, and when I reach her door, I see her pulling clothes out of her wardrobe, staring at them, discarding them. Of course. We're headed back to District Seven next, and I guess that means their sole victor will be there - the man she loved enough to risk being shunned and sent away for.

I let her be, and go to Lepidus instead. He has some winter clothes for me, and I put them on and go out without asking permission. I spend the early afternoon helping people shovel snow off the tracks. I have a snowball fight with a local boy, and when a Peacekeeper tries to interrupt it, I pull down my scarf and more less dare him to interfere with a victor. I feel better than I have for a long time.

It doesn't end up on the air.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**  
We get underway just before sunset.

It's still snowing, but the winds have died down, and it's calm enough that a sweeper car can now go ahead of us an keep the track clear. I say goodbye to the kids from Eight (I notice that they're all bright enough to keep their own scarves up, to avoid retaliation later), then get on the train. Gia just rolls her eyes at me. She doesn't show any sign of the woman nervously tearing her wardrobe apart earlier.

"We're behind a day," she says. "We were going to have a tour of the forest in Seven, so they cancelled that, and it should be enough to get us back on schedule."

"Oh… sorry. I guess you wouldn't want the trip to Seven shorter."

'It's probably just as well that we're not spending the night."

I'm not entirely sure what I'm supposed to say about that, so I ignore it and ask, "Is it a long trip out there?"

"Longest leg of the trip, actually. It would have been two days in ideal circumstances. It's almost at the western ocean."

"Will we see the ocean?"

"No, there's no sea access. But it's almost there. You could probably smell it, if the paper mill didn't stink the whole place up." She smiles. "Do you want to see the ocean? You'll probably get a glimpse in Four. I could send word ahead to ask if we can have some time at the beach."

I _do_ want to see the ocean, but I don't want to ask for it. Gia already looks like she wants to pinch my cheeks over going out in the snow. I shrug.

She mimics it sarcastically, then we go to the dining car for supper. Everyone else ate earlier.

"So," I say. "Will you need me to cover for you during the banquet?"

She smiles. "Much as I appreciate the offer, I better not accept it. You're expected to be fooling around. I'm expected to be looking after you."

"Let me know if you change your mind. I owe you one for Eleven."

"Deal." She picks at her food.

I think about asking her if she's nervous, but it feels like a question that would cross the line.

While we eat, the Capitol runs today's Victory Tour programming. Since they aren't showing anything here - the news just reported that we were delayed by a snowstorm - they have decided to do a feature on District Twelve. Apparently, before the Capitol lovingly took us in, we were under the thumb of District Thirteen (always a handy villain, since they can't talk back), and they'd let us deteriorate into sheer barbarism. Ancient history about blood feuds in Appalachia, before the Catastrophes, is re-hashed. This, apparently, contributes to our ongoing "tribal" streak, which now (under the exquisite care of the Capitol) has just become part of our charming "local color." The bitter division between town and Seam is treated as an innocent rivalry, like the competing bands of fans that different victors have in the Capitol.

I'm guessing that this innocent rivalry must be in a hell of a flare-up - either that, or Beckett's doing another crackdown - because the reporters never leave Victors' Village, even though they claim to be in the square, and have hired a few local people (I definitely see Mir Murphy) to populate the background. They dig up a few of my friends. Danny dutifully thanks people for the recipes. He is covered in what looks like plaster dust, and they say he and my "many other friends" - whoever they might be - are working on a surprise in my house for when I get back. I'm guessing Danny played on Glen Everdeen's guilty conscience to get him to help. I can't think of anyone else who would bother.

We stay up a while longer, watching pointless things on television and talking about books. Lepidus joins us for a little bit, and they switch over to a conversation about fashion. I know nothing about it, so I just listen. Lepidus asks me what I mean to make my "personal style," and I admit that I don't even know how to shop for clothes outside of District Twelve.

I end up spending most of the next day en route to District Seven working with Lepidus and Plutarch, learning the ins and outs of measuring myself to order clothes at a distance. We also go over how to tell whether or not a color is good on me. Plutarch claims to be envious of my skin, since nothing precisely _clashes_ with it. I never knew things could clash with skin. It's maybe the most practical thing I've learned from the Capitol. I have a feeling that it's also something they've cooked up to keep me occupied, since Gia is getting more and more nervous by the hour.

I stay awake late at night, reading a history book that Plutarch has lent me, and I see her pacing the length of the train several times.

In the morning, I'm dragged out of bed for prep. We'll be in Seven in time for lunch. Gia rushes in during my prep (thank heaven, it's not one of the less clothed parts of it) and begs Igerna to do something with her nails. She sits there with her hands under a drying lamp while Medusa fusses with my hair. I reach over and take her hand, which means we'll both need to be re-manicured, but she squeezes back and smiles anyway.

We cross District Seven's fence a little bit after lunch, and I find myself surrounded by woods. It's not like the woods at home, though I can't put my finger on why, since I don't spend much time out there. Digger could probably point out every different plant. The loggers travel up and down the length of the forest, setting up traveling camps each year and replanting after each clear-cut. It's no longer snowing, but a steady, heavy rain falls most of the way to the central town.

When we get out, I have to hold my breath to not gag. The whole place has a strange, rotten egg smell to it that I guess must be the paper mill Gia mentioned. She gives me a stern look, but I don't need it. My mother would never let me look disgusted at someone else's home… given the state of our home, it would have been kind of hypocritical.

She hands me my cards, and the kill list from the district. Two died at the Cornucopia, but she's starred one of them - Declan Denny. He tangled with Maysilee. The others died in combat during the Games.

The atmosphere in the Justice Building is much more comfortable than it's been elsewhere. Gia greets the Peacekeepers by name, and the mayor gives her a hug and says, "Blight's in the kitchen now, helping out with the feast."

I look at Gia.

She smiles. "It's his talent. Cooking. He's very good."

There's no time for a discussion of this, because I have to go out and give my speech, which is starting to sound very stale. I'm tempted to change it a little bit here and there, but I doubt that the Peacekeepers would hesitate to hurt my team, first name basis with my escort or not.

The crowd stands sullenly around. I see a few big log trucks, and kids sitting on their flatbeds who look like they're not used to the smell - lumberjack kids, I guess, who only have to come into town twice a year, for the reaping and the tour. The others just look bored. I can't see any particular visible difference, like there is in Twelve, but the expressions are a dead giveaway. Somewhere, not far from the square, I can hear a river raging through the district.

The mayor presents me with another useless plaque, apologizes that we won't be able to have a tour through the woods, then invites me to supper. I follow her in. Because of the tight schedule, there's not an extra prep session, and my speech clothes will have to serve for the meal as well.

The festival hall is hung with fragrant evergreen wreaths that partially succeed in covering up the mill smell. The smell of food wafting through the air helps as well.

Before we're seated the door to the kitchen opens, and a tall, pleasant looking man comes out. He grins. "Welcome to District Seven," he says. "And welcome _back_ to our more familiar visitor."

Gia smiles beautifully.

We all sit down to eat. Blight is apparently kicked out of the kitchen for the part of the meal that isn't his talent - serving and cleaning - and he joins us, dropping down casually into the seat beside Gia's. "I don't usually volunteer my talent for these things," he says, "but my invitation got lost."

"Well, I'm glad you rectified that," Gia says. "Ollie, this is Haymitch Abernathy. Haymitch, Ollie Hedge."

"Everyone other than Gia calls me Blight," he says, holding out his hand.

I shake it. "Nice to meet you."

"At this point in the tour, if I recall, it's not nice to meet anyone, and you just want to get home."

I smile. "True. But it's still nice to meet you. Cooking is your talent?"

"You'll see when they bring the food out. I hear you're friends with the baker out in Twelve. Take that up as a new talent, and we can swap recipes." He pulls a card out of pocket and hands it to me. There is a cheerful looking, smiling feather on one side. "This is my own twist on our bread. If he wants it more authentic, he can take out the dill. I just like it with a little flavor. We usually make it with tessera grain, but for special occasions, we use chestnut flour. Do you have chestnut trees?"

"I'm not sure."

"The forest is outside the fence in District Twelve," Gia explains. "So of course Haymitch has never been in it."

"Yeah. I can see how that would be." He smiles. "Anyway, the local food around here used to come out of the river, so the local dishes are all seafood… which we have to order from Four. You don't want to eat fish out of our river - the paper mill makes them bad - and of course, the other rivers are all on Capitol land, so we never fish from them."

I laugh. "Right. I can see that, too."

"So, for this shindig, I ordered everything express shipped from Four. I had to haggle that crook Odair down to a reasonable price."

"Isn't the government picking these things up?" I ask.

"Well, yes, but it's the _principle._"

A bell rings, and the food comes out. Blight is not lying - he really does have a talent for cooking, if he actually cooked this. I haven't had much in the way of seafood, so I taste it all carefully before digging in, but it all seems good.

Gia's nervousness has entirely disappeared. So has any attention she would generally be paying to me. She and Blight catch up on news of the district, speak in the accidental code of an old friendship, refer to events I have no concept of, and seem extremely comfortable together. Though Gia is careful enough to make sure no one gives _me_ any wine, she has a few glasses herself, and so does Blight. They spend a lot of time talking about nothing more important than haggling for seafood, but I guess it doesn't matter _what_ two people are talking about, when they're looking at each other like that.

The tables are cleared away for dancing, and I am not surprised to see them dancing close together. I decide to cover for her whether she asks me to or not.

The best way to do that, as far as I can tell, is to keep the minders busy. I dance with everyone who asks, and make a big point of talking to the mayor for a long time. A woman who works in the kitchen nearly gets in trouble for bringing her three year old son with her (I hear her say that she couldn't afford to have anyone watch him), but I pretend that kids are my favorite thing in the world and offer to keep an eye on him while she works. His name is Jack, and he turns out to be great at diverting attention from everyone in the vicinity. By the time his mother finishes her shift and collects him, no cameras are pointing at my team, and I'm not surprised that Gia and Blight are nowhere in sight.

The party goes on for a long time, mostly because the train needs some maintenance. My team, and a few other workers from the tour, seem to be enjoying themselves. Plutarch is having what looks like an intense philosophical conversation with the mayor. I have danced with a lot of girls, but they're leaving me alone at the moment. My preps are chatting up local men. It more than crosses my mind that there's no reason I shouldn't be doing the same with the girls. I'm about as single as it's possible to get, and the government doesn't have a problem with it, and Gia doesn't have much of a leg to stand on at the moment. The threat about closely related tributes showing up from other districts at some distant point doesn't exactly seem imminent, and I seem to recall Digger and I finding a lot of things to do that wouldn't go there, anyway.

And it's not like I have a reputation to protect anymore.

The only thing really stopping me is that I know Mom would be appalled.

I decide that I'd probably argue with her about it, anyway. She was appalled by Digger and me, too, and it didn't stop me.

I get up and go toward a pretty girl with blond braids. There's nothing special about her, except that she's standing by herself by the bar. I sit down on one of the stools. "Nice feast."

She turns, and sips something through a straw. "Like it?'

"Yeah."

"I liked the fish."

"It was good."

I don't know how long this fascinating conversation might continue on its own, but, to my disappointment, she gets called away by her friends. I think about trying someone else, but a smell distracts me - a high, juniper smell. Someone has left a bottle of gin open. No one is guarding it.

I take it. The party's for me, anyway.

I figure that someone will spot me and stop me; Gia has everyone on sober-Haymitch duty. But we've been here for a long time, and people are bored with the visiting celebrity. I look around and find a shadowy alcove. Better yet, when I get there, I find a door that leads outside.

I hold the bottle close to my nose to drive away the smell of the paper mills, and look for someplace to drink. We're at the riverside here, and the rushing water fills the night with a kind of soft white noise. It will cover the sound of my footsteps. There's a little dock running along the bank. I run for it, and hide under it. Maybe I could even run away from here… just slip into the river and let it carry me to wherever it goes.

I hold up the bottle, and I'm about to drink when I hear something above me. I look up. I can't see much through the slats of the dock, but can tell that there are two people. They sit down on a little bench right over my head, then I hear Gia say, "Okay, we're here. The river should cover it. How bad is it?"

I lower the bottle. I feel like I should say something to let her know I'm here, so she doesn't say anything personal… but I suddenly don't want her to see me here, hiding with a stolen bottle of gin. I'm kind of stuck.

"It's bad," the other voice says. I don't know for sure, but I think I can reasonably assume it's Blight. "I've been in the Capitol. Talked to a few of my… friends."

Gia hisses. "I don't like your friends there."

"Neither do I. But they're full of information. That's the only use I have for them."

"I know."

He sighs loudly enough that I can hear it over the water. "What's going on with the kid's real talent, Gia? Snow's convinced you're hiding something."

"He's been a little busy mourning, Ollie. He didn't have time to embroider potholders."

"You know that's not what Snow thinks."

"I know! I've been getting daily calls from the Gamemakers."

"Is that why you're so uptight?"

"Yes. As far as anyone on the train knows, it's just seeing you again -"

"Why would you be nervous about seeing _me_? You've seen quite a lot of me."

"Not since we split."

"Oh. Right."

Neither of them says anything for a while, then Gia says, "What have you been hearing? The whole story, Ollie. I know you're holding back. I recognize the look on your face."

"You always could read me." The bench creaks as he moves. "Snow's paranoid about the kid."

"Because he made threats in the arena? He's not the first one to do that."

"No. But he _is_ the first one who didn't even bother to pretend to play against the other tributes. From the second he came up at the Cornucopia, he was playing against Snow and the Gamemakers, and they _know_ it. Snow's convinced that he did something rebellious as a talent, and you're aiding and abetting him."

"Why is he so convinced of it? The recipes?"

Blight snorts. "No. Snow isn't suspicious of recipes that are going to a kid who folded after one whipping."

I grimace. I hate that Danny took this reputation on himself.

"I don't know. Whatever's going on, obviously, people are being careful. But Gia… you picked a translation project as a cover. Where in the hell is a kid from the mines in District Twelve supposed to have picked up Ancient Greek? And the rumor is that the notes were in Caesar's handwriting, which Snow knows perfectly well."

"Haymitch is a smart kid. He could have picked up some dictionaries. There were dictionaries in the house; I made sure of it before I picked that. And the notes aren't in Caesar's handwriting. Someone else did them." Her voice is tight, with an edge of real anger.

Blight waits for her to calm down and then says, "It doesn't matter, Gia. You could have personally taught him Ancient Greek while you were there, and it could really be his talent. For all I know, he's a damned genius. The point is, he's a genius that Snow has in his sights, and as far as he's concerned, you blocked his shot."

"Yeah? Good."

"This is serious! You remember Manius Cadwell, from security? He thought I believed those idiotic rumors about you and the kid. So he told me not to worry - you were going to get your comeuppance for it."

"What did he say they were going to do?"

"He didn't, exactly, but I think we can count on re-education. Debt collection and debtors' prison, maybe. Best case scenario, you get fired and your name gets dragged through the mud."

"But he has no proof of anything!"

Blight stands up and takes several heavy paces. "Since when does he need proof?" He kneels in front of her, casting a dark shadow over my hiding place. "Gia, listen to me. You're not going to skate by. He got you in deep when he wouldn't let me pay for your college, and they have their claws in you in the Capitol. You _know_ that."

"So what am I supposed to do?"

"Don't go back to the Capitol. I wasn't just haggling for seafood, you know. I was haggling for passage for you. Though the people monitoring the bugs may well think you're a particularly fine fillet of catfish." There's a break, and I imagine her smiling at the little joke. "I'm not going to let them… _erase_ you."

"You want me to just dump Haymitch in the middle of his tour, and leave him to whatever Snow cooks up next?"

"Yes!" He pauses, and when he speaks again, his voice is muffled. "Gia, I love you. I know you like the boy, and I'm glad, but _I love you_. I can erase all the ephemera about you. Pull your genetic scans out of their records. Get your fingerprints off the file. I have friends - real ones - who know how to do that. They won't find you if you run."

"Neither will you."

"It's better for me not to see you than for you to stop _being_ you."

"I need to be there."

"But you won't be. If they take you away, if they re-educate you, you're not going to be any help to him."

I hear Gia choke back a sob. "I can't, Ollie. It's my whole life!"

He makes a lot of soothing sounds, then says, "There's a re-fueling stop about two hours out of Four. It'll be the middle of the night. You can get out. Look for the fairy slippers."

"I can't…"

He holds her. I hold the bottle tight and try not to scream.

They hold onto each other for a long time, talking softly about years past. I put my hands over my ears so I don't hear, at least until the thunder of footsteps interrupts everything. I look up through the slats. Peacekeepers are surrounding them.

Blight stands up. "What do you want?"

"The boy's missing. Where is he?"

"What?" Gia stands as well, and I'm glad she doesn't know where I actually am, because I doubt she could fake being that startled. "What do you mean, missing?"

"He disappeared from the banquet."

"He's probably off with some girl," Blight says dismissively. "You know how they throw themselves at the victors."

"They're all accounted for."

"We need to find him!" Gia says. "Now!"

Dirt sifts down onto me as they all run off the dock. Gia calls to me frantically.

I stay there, sitting on the cold ground, staring at the bottle of gin, trying to process everything. If they're going to take Gia away, then she has to run. But what am I supposed to do without her?

It doesn't matter. I'm going to be without her either way. Like Mom. Like Digger. Like Maysilee. The question is whether I want them to take her from me _that_ brutally, or whether I want to help her escape.

Which isn't much of a question.

If they find me here, in the same place she was, they'll take her right away. She won't have time to use whatever Blight set up for her.

I crawl out carefully, looking around for Peacekeepers. There are none in sight. I need to be somewhere sensible, and with a good excuse for disappearing.

I look at the bottle of gin.

Gia will be angry at me, but I guess that's okay. I run for the nearest shadow by the Justice Building, and follow it along to the far side, by the square where I talked earlier. There are Peacekeepers looking around, so I'll have to be somewhere a little bit out of the way.

I head for a huge tree with a picnic table under it, curl up in the roots, and douse myself with most of the contents of the bottle. The rest, I drink gratefully. It will be on my breath.

I hide carefully in the shadows of the tree.

It takes them fifteen minutes to find me, and reports of my drunken adventure in District Seven will undoubtedly lead the news for days, but the Peacekeepers laugh, and let Gia go about the business of picking me up and cleaning me off.

After all, even she can't possibly be expected to control _that_.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**  
Gia doesn't talk to me as they bundle us onto the train, and she pretends not to hear me when I call to her. She doesn't come into the prep room in the morning. My preps are full of hangover remedies, and they offer me a few "pick-me-up" pills to get through the day. I decide that I'm in enough trouble with Gia, so I decline.

"Oh, don't be silly," Fabiola says. "I couldn't get through the day after a party without a little boost. It's like taking aspirin when you have a headache."

"Aspirin?"

"What do you take for headaches?"

"Cold packs. Maybe feverfew, if Ruth's dad has some."

They laugh merrily at this bit of rustic wisdom, and start another round of bleaching on my teeth. They claim my teeth have become more reasonable with every district, though I still need to have them straightened. They tell me that they don't mind me drinking, but ask me to stay away from red wines and dark-colored liqueurs, as it will undo all their work.

While Medusa is doing my hair, she has to go digging for something that's rolled away. She plops something heavy down on top, which I recognize with disgust as one of the arena knives she talked about for doing that chopped hairstyle. Worse, I see that it has a little golden tag affixed to it, which says "Crispus Bidwell."

I killed Crispus Bidwell with a knife, and I have a sinking suspicion that they pulled it out of his neck, and now my hair stylist uses it to copy Maysilee's emergency haircut. I don't say anything.

Gia fetches me brusquely as soon as I'm done and forces the speech card into my hand. "All four of the District Six tributes died at the Cornucopia," she says. "I don't think you said anything to any of them in training, either, so it's the standard bit about how every tribute in the games is a hero. Got it?"

"Got it."

"There will be a stop right outside the train, so you can see the Rotation. We've been through it several times now, but you'll pretend you haven't seen it."

"I haven't looked."

"Right."

"Really, I haven't."

"Well, express interest. That's the only thing they have to claim for themselves, except for some of them putting in time on the fueling stations in the out-districts, which they won't be talking to you about."

"Maybe I'll even _be_ interested. Can we talk, Gia?"

She looks directly at me for the first time since last night. Her eyes are sunken, and ringed with dark circles under her makeup. "I don't want to hear it, Haymitch. No excuses. Do you have any idea how disappointed in you I am?"

She walks away from me. I feel about two inches tall.

Our train attendants take part in the approach to District Six, lowering the window coverings and explaining the tracks that we can now see beginning to converge from the distance. I notice that we are _not_ shown a map, which I'd think would be a natural thing to show here. Maps are often in short supply. Apparently they don't like people in any district to have a really solid idea about how to reach any other district. I try to construct it in my mind - I know we went south to Eleven, then west over the river, and that District Seven is at the western ocean, but the constant re-route through the Rotation throws me off. It's always at night. I don't really know which directions we've turned.

We finally come in sight of what looks from a distance like a delicate moving sculpture, rising up from the plains. A high, arched structure seems to go on for miles, and under it, platforms and loading machinery gleam in the sun. One of the engineers makes a great flourish about flipping a switch, and I feel the train move just the slightest bit, then we are rising up into the air. I see another train coming from somewhere else, moving in below us.

"Welcome to District Six," the engineer says.

There's not much more talk as the train speeds up to the top of the dome-shaped structure - the grade feels much gentler than I would have expected - and comes to a rest in the flat area at the top. We are unloaded carefully onto a platform high in the sky, at the top of the world. I can see the tracks stretching out in all directions. Most of them are steel gray, but one track is made to look like gold. Below us, many trains seem to be waiting their turn to get onto it, and I guess that track goes to the Capitol.

I can also see into the walled city just beyond the Rotation. I can't see _much_, but I can see the burned out shells of at least two buildings, and the snow on the ground is dirty and dispirited. I'm somewhere in the flatlands, but I don't know where.

The mayor of District Six, Arsace Bump, tries to look more knowledgeable than the engineers (I see them biting their tongues) while he explains the Rotation. "The platform we're on, see… it turns. There are two more levels below. But, you see, sometimes the turn for trains is very severe between districts, and er…" He looks to the original engineer, who's been driving the whole time, I guess. "I'll let Captain Green tell it. Vitellia?"

She steps forward and explains that, while most turns can use a simple track switch, the more extreme turns need a little more tweaking. To that purpose, an entire section of the track - the one we're standing by - can actually be rotated and relocked to a new track. Here on the high track, only used for official visits, tourism to the arenas, and the victory tour, there is never a wait. It is common for shipping trains to be delayed for a few hours below while they wait for a clear track, so there is a thriving market on the ground. (From here, it looks like a few hapless shacks with counters to vend simple food and drink, but I don't argue.)

Once we've finished with the explanation, which I actually do find interesting and wish I had more time to ask questions about, we take a glass elevator to the surface, where we're picked up by long cars. I sit beside Gia and try to talk to her, but she answers curtly and just glares out the windows.

The city we enter reminds me a lot of District Eight, except that District Eight seemed to have more life to it. Here, the only business is actually outside the town. I see children sleeping in the doorways of burned out tenements. Adults sit out in the snow with their hands upraised, begging for scraps. I see Peacekeepers head in, but the car turns away before I see what they do.

The Justice Building is nearly solid concrete on the outside, and inside, there is no daylight, and no view of the city. There's a small transportation museum, which we breeze by on the way to the speech, and many paintings of hard-working people on assembly lines.

I give the speech from a tiny niche on the wall that serves as a balcony. Below me, I can see a bedraggled group of people. In front, there's a little boy with no shoes standing in the snow, looking up at me. He actually gives me a "thumbs up" gesture. I don't know why.

I give Gia's speech. I get another plaque, and wonder if it could somehow be cobbled into shoes. For some reason, the crowd cheers me enthusiastically.

"There was a waiting list to get into the audience," Mayor Bump explains as we go in. "You were a favorite here once we lost our tributes."

"I was?"

"You wouldn't have seen it on the highlight reel, but in a lot of the filler material… well, they talked to your mom, and showed your house. Your mom talked about how you kept it together with spit and good luck. A lot of them understand what that's like. They thought you were one of them." He pauses. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have talked about that…"

"No, it's okay. I'm glad they liked what Mom said. It's good she's remembered."

"They were real sorry to hear about her passing. I was, too."

"Thank you."

Gia comes up behind him, an odd look on her face. "Haymitch, you need to go to prep," she says. "For the banquet."

I go to her, and she walks beside me to the stairs. "Second door on the right at the top of the stairs. Haymitch…"

"What?"

I watch her struggling with whatever she means to say, then she just shakes her head and says, "I'm sorry I snapped. I was out of place."

I shake my head. "No. You weren't." I hear an engine roar, and look over at the door to the transportation museum. It gives me an idea. "Do you think we'll have time to have a look around in there?"

"It'll be open all evening, as I understand it."

I nod. I don't think I need to make any special arrangements. I hope I don't. I go up to prep. I have no idea what's gone wrong with me in the two hours since they finished my last session, but Medusa actually re-washes my hair and re-arranges it. Of course, new clothes are required. Lepidus has me in gray here.

District Six has no victors yet, so the mayor brings me the bread recipe himself. It has no birds or feathers on it. "It's not much," he says. "I think the only difference between ours and District Eight's is that they bake it flat, and we fry it until it's puffy." He smiles nervously when he sees my confusion. "I used to work the rails," he says. "And I was stationed for a while at the fueling station near Eight. We sometimes got their bread."

I put the card into the pouch Gia has procured for me, just for the purpose of collecting these. I promise I will get Danny all of the ingredients, so we can try them all.

The banquet in Six is as makeshift as things usually are in Twelve - the District government has to throw something, but there's only so much blood they can get out of the stone of the local economy. For all of that, it's actually quite good. The greasy, puffy bread is laid out on the plates, and spiced meat and vegetables are piled onto it. After the meal, there is dancing again. A couple of the girls have gone out of their way to look very nice, but when I dance with them, their hearts aren't in it.

"Is it me?" I ask the second one. Her name is Lucilla, I think.

She smiles. "No. You're nice. My feet hurt."

I look down and see that she's tottering in high heels. "You should kick those off. Maysilee hated them in the Capitol, too."

This gets a more real smile. "Yeah?" She shrugs. "I bet they got her a size that fits, though. My sister and I are sharing these, and they're her size."

I nod. "I used to have to wear my dad's work boots. I don't think my feet are as big as his _now_, let alone then. I had blisters so big I named them."

Lucilla laughs. "Any advice?"

"Just pad them with whatever you can. Though I guess that would be harder when they're open like that. And tipped. How do girls walk in those things?"

"It's like tiptoeing everywhere, except that you never get to put your heel down." She comes closer. "Do you want to go somewhere with me?"

I look for any rebel signs, hoping to find one so I'll have an excuse, but I don't. "No," I say. "I want you to go back to the kitchen and eat as much leftover food as you can. And see if you can sneak some out for your sister, too."

"I could get whipped for that, but luckily, my sister's here. We'll take your advice." She nods and smiles as the song ends, looking more natural than when we started, then weaves away into the crowd as the next dance begins.

"She seems nice."

I turn to find Gia, and offer her my hand. "Dance?"

"Why don't we go see that museum?"

I nod, and follow her out of the banquet hall. The entrance area isn't empty. Groups of people are milling around, drinking and talking. Gia and I go through them, though I have to talk to a few of them here and there. Finally, we reach the door to the little museum. A handful of people are going through it. At the entrance, there's a video playing, of different kinds of vehicles. There's even footage of something flying high above the earth, much higher than our hover crafts go.

Gia pulls me past it. I guess we're not here to take in the history of transportation in Panem.

We go by life-sized displays of men in wide-brimmed hats riding horses, and black steam engines chugging across the plains. A wagon with curtained windows is pulled by six still horses, while a mannequin peeks out from behind the curtain. We have to pass through a kind of silly exhibit with fake windows that look out on what Gia identifies, in a distracted way, as jets, then through a dark corridor that represents the Catastrophes. After it, we enter the chaotic time before the Capitol formed Panem. I find myself standing with Gia in the middle of a ring of motorcycles and ragtag cars, and trucks laden with wares to sell. One of the wagons has an activity station, where we can climb up and pretend to drive. To my surprise, Gia heads straight to it and goes up to the driver's seat.

I climb up beside her

She presses the button to begin the simulation and the whole room seems full of clanking and hissing sounds.

_Loud_ sounds. She sits there at the wheel for a long time, then says, mostly to herself, "They already talk."

"What?"

She leans over and puts her arms around me, putting her lips near my ear. "I think this will cover the sound, if we talk quietly like this."

I turn my head so I can speak into her ear. "It'll end up on the news. Blight will see it."

"Ollie knows the difference between real and fake." She pulls me closer. "I need to tell you something. Something he told me -"

"I know."

"No, you couldn't. Haymitch -"

"I wasn't drunk last night."

"Haymitch -"

"I was going to be. That's why I was hiding under the docks."

She pulls away and looks at me, the implications sinking in. "You should've…"

"There didn't seem to be a good time." I pull her back to me. "I overheard."

"How much?"

"Everything that happened on the dock. I left so they wouldn't think you were hiding me."

"Oh. And you doused yourself. I should've realized you weren't drunk." She presses closer, and I feel her hand on my neck. It's warm and soft. "I'm sorry. I should've trusted you."

I move so that I'm speaking in her other ear. I tell myself this is about making it look real. "You didn't have a reason to. How can I help?"

She doesn't say anything for a few minutes, but stays close. I'm very aware of her perfume, and how the lights are softened when they reflect in her hair. Finally, she sighs and says, "You can't. But I didn't want to just leave you. Wondering."

I stroke her hair. I feel oddly dizzy, and there are quite a few parts of me that are not remotely interested in this little chat. "I would do anything to help you." I kiss her. I can't help it.

She pulls away. Her eyes are wide, and her face is a little flushed. "I know. I think we need to… find a different way to talk. I'm sorry, Haymitch. There are other ways. I shouldn't have tried this one. I wasn't thinking." She lets go of me and scoots out the far side of the exhibit. She looks up once, apologetically, then disappears deeper into the museum.

I stay there for a few minutes, behind the wheel with the simulated road rolling out ahead of me. There are animated bandits that I'm supposed to be evading, and one of them hits the truck, causing the simulation to end. I stay a little longer.

After a while, I go back to the dark corridor, walk back and forth for a long time, and pretend that I have a deep interest in the erosion of the road system that once crisscrossed the continent. When I decide it's reasonable, I move into the better lit parts of the museum, and numb my brain with facts about monorails and hover crafts and the attempt to lessen the impact of human travel on the atmosphere. There's a panel with weather data suggesting that the wild climate of the Catastrophe era has stabilized, thanks to our judicious use of resources. (It does not mention that it might also be due to the not-so-judicious near-extinction of the human species, but I think it's an obvious subtext.)

I finally join a group of dignitaries from Six and spend half an hour asking them what I hope are innocuous questions about the Rotation. When I go back to the banquet, Gia has already left for the train. I spend the rest of the evening with Plutarch, who promises that it's a short trip to District Five. "Pretty much just sleep and prep, and then you're there."

"Right. Good."

"Is something wrong?"

I shake my head. Plutarch may be a rebel, but I don't discuss Gia with him. Instead, I ask him about school in the Capitol, and let him launch into a lecture that takes us all the way back to the train. I go to my car and get ready for bed. I don't sleep for a long time, and when I do, at least it's not nightmares that my imagination produces.

True to Plutarch's word, I have barely finished prep when the train pulls into District Five. Like Twelve, Five is a single walled city with a train depot up against the fence. Gia tells me - across a large table - that the people do sometimes go out to various sites where panels soak up solar and geothermal energy, but mostly, they work in the plants, where that energy is sent out to the rest of Panem.

"It's a little spotty in Twelve," I say.

"I think you can avoid mentioning that."

She hands me the kill list. Two at the Cornucopia, one at the volcano. The last, a girl named Cora Finley, was the last to die before Maysilee. I remember sitting there with Maysilee, trying to remember anything about her, both of us failing. I decide I should avoid mentioning that as well.

"Are there victors?" I ask.

"There've been five. One is dead. One disappeared -"

"Disappeared?"

"Yeah. The winner of the first Quarter Quell was from Five. He stayed in the Capitol for a while, then got on a train to come back, and never arrived." She looks at me. "It happens more than people think."

"Right."

"Anyway, that leaves Faraday Sykes - she only won a few years ago - and Thalis Dorgan. I will warn you right now - during the Games, don't go drinking with Thalis. But do take a really good look at him tonight, if you want a quite literally sobering experience. There's also old Tesla Corvin, but he most likely will stay home."

I give my speech from the Justice Building in the pouring rain. People stand huddled under blankets. It's not a very large district. I think about adding something about the first Quell victor then decide not to - the twisted cruelty for that one was that districts had to choose their own tributes. Whoever he was, this district offered him up for slaughter. Maybe I'd have disappeared from the train, too.

At the banquet, I'm seated with Faraday and Thalis, along with my team. Faraday gives me the bread recipe (no feathers), though she snipes that there's nothing special about it. Plain white bread, end of story. She continues a rather bitter monologue throughout the meal. She's actually very beautiful, but the nasty undertone to everything she says distorts it. She reminds me of Danny's off-time girlfriend. Thalis doesn't talk much, mostly because he's drinking everything in sight. Faraday smokes one cigarette after another, which doesn't leave me with much of an appetite, though I eat as much as I need to for manners.

There's no dancing afterward. This is one of the districts where the entertainment is supposed to be sparkling conversation. Thalis is clearly in no shape to sparkle. Faraday looks at him distastefully and says, "I'm going to have to pour him into bed back in the village. You have anyone to pour you into bed?"

I shake my head.

"Then don't get like him. Half the time, I find him face down on the floor in his underwear. Not attractive." She shrugs. "Not that it's a bad idea to have _something_ to calm the nerves. Don't let anyone tell you to try and deal with the Games stone sober."

"Miss Sykes," Gia starts, "I think - "

"Get real, Pelagia. Do you really think he'll be better off sober once the… _sponsors_… start coming around?" She sniffs. "There's a good crowd of practice marks here if you want to get in a workout before you hit the Capitol. See the brunette over by the buffet? I've had a few rounds with her, and she's fun."

"That's quite enough," Gia says, standing up.

"Haven't you learned by now that you can't keep him for yourself? He's a good looking kid. I can think of half a dozen people who'd like to slip him a nice, big, hot sponsorship."

Gia's face goes cold. "You forget yourself."

"I _wish_," Faraday says fervently. "But unfortunately, I can't." She lights up another cigarette, then gets up and wanders over to the brunette.

"Sorry about her," Gia says. "She hasn't been happy."

"Yeah… Chaff told me that… that…" I can't quite say what Chaff told me during the night he spent in the Mellarks' shed. He says no one thought he was appealing, only having one hand, and Seeder was too old by the time this particular trick occurred to Snow, but that a handful of the victors were expected to entertain the sponsors back in the Capitol. He had a feeling Snow might decide I should be in that handful. Apparently, Faraday Sykes thinks so, too. He suggested making myself disgusting. No one wants the disgusting ones. I look at Thalis, now passed out on the table, and wonder if it's a grand strategy he's using.

The party finally ends, and we go back to the train. I don't go to bed right away. I remember what Blight told Gia - the fueling station outside of District Four. If she's going that's where she'll break away.

I find her in the last car, watching the night-world slip away around us. I sit down across from her. She doesn't send me away. I finally fall asleep as we're approaching the Rotation, and I wake up in my car. I don't know who got me there, or how, but I rush to find Gia, afraid that I've missed her.

I haven't.

I find her sitting where I left her, watching the world go by outside the train. We're beside the Mississippi again, going south along its west bank, headed for River Bay.

I don't let her out of my sight all day. We eat together, and read together, and don't talk at all.

The sun sets. The stars shine have a misty haze around them, and the weather is warm enough now to open the windows, even at night.

It's just after eight o'clock when the train pulls up to the fueling station. Like the others I've seen, it's a prefabricated steel box, looking out of place in the wilderness. I think it would make more sense to have the fueling stations inside the districts, but I guess that would mean giving the districts control over fuel, which of course, the Capitol won't have.

Gia looks at me and stands up. "Well," she says. "I need to get some work done before tomorrow. Your cards, and so on. You'll stick to the cards, right?"

I grab her hand. If she leaves the car, she'll be gone, and I know it. "I'll forget."

"No, you won't. You'll be fine. I know you'll be fine."

Everything about this is saying goodbye. Somehow, she's going to get off the train here. She's going to disappear.

I am trying to work out a way to really tell her goodbye when the train's lights go extremely bright, and a high-pitched whistle breaks the air.

In a thunder of boots and guns, Peacekeepers board the train.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**  
I go to the window. We're too high above the platform to jump.

"Haymitch - "

"Come on," I say, and grab her hand. I pull her up a few cars. It's closer to where the Peacekeepers are, but there are also stairways down to the ground between some of the cars. They'll be guarded, I'm sure, but…

We pass the prep car. I stop and open the door.

"What is it, Haymitch?"

"I need something here," I say.

I don't turn the lights on. I've spent enough time in this room that I can find my way around in the shadows. I pull Gia in and hide her in the dark beside the door.

Medusa's cart is against the far wall. I break the lock on the top drawer and pull out the knife. It fits as easily into my hand as it did in the arena.

Gia grabs my arm and whispers, "Haymitch, what are you doing?"

"I'm getting you out of here."

"It's -"

"It's an arena. I know how to deal with that."

"You can't let them catch you. They'll make you disappear."

"Well, they're sure as hell not catching _you_," I say.

Two Peacekeepers run by, and I push her down under their sightline.

I open the door and slip out into the hall. The Peacekeepers are searching our personal quarters first. That's good. The ones who went by are probably headed for the last car, but they're too late.

I put my finger over my mouth to indicate that Gia should be quiet. She rolls her eyes at me.

The first staircase we come to is impossible. I peek out the window of the nearest car. Six guards are gathered there. I hope the rest aren't like that, or we're going to have to risk jumping out a window. Luckily, the second only has three guards. I point to them from the car we're looking out of.

Gia leans in and whispers urgently, "Haymitch, you can't kill them. It has to look like it was just me."

"I could come with you."

"If you don't get back on this train, they'll punish your district for it. Your friends. Maysilee's sister. They'll burn it all."

I realize she's right. I also realize that I hate the Capitol. The hate is a tangible thing, an _active_ thing. I grind my teeth. "Let's get you safe, and then I'll… I'll come up with a cover story."

"Whatever it is, it has to be something that I could do."

I look around the car. It's a lounge. The bar is locked up. I could break in easily enough, but it would make noise. There's a broom left behind by the maintenance crew, and a chair I might be able to brain someone with, if I had a good angle.

My eyes drift down to the floor, and I see Gia's shoes. I remember Maysilee, heading off for her interview practice with Drake. I told her those spike heels would make fine weapons.

I look up. Gia must be remembering it, too. She takes off her shoes and holds them up like clubs. I grab the broom in one hand and the knife in the other. I'd rather use the knife. It's more certain.

But Gia's right - anyone who's ever met her would know she couldn't do it.

I tuck the knife into my belt. I don't know who else we'll see by the time we're through.

We go to the door. She shakes her head slightly and points me to the shadows.

She hurls her shoe out into the night. It splashes into a puddle.

One of the guards cocks his weapon, and looks in the direction of the sound. If he had a brain, he'd alert the whole crew, but he doesn't. He signals to his friends to flank the door, then sneaks off into the shadows by himself, probably imagining the glory of bringing in their dangerous rebel all alone.

I wait until he's out of earshot, then go to the door and swing the broom handle quickly, once to each side, dropping the two remaining guards to the ground. I look up the train. Little groups of guards are gathered at the various exits, but these two went down so quickly that no one notices. There is a little strip of woods. Through it, I can see the moonlight glinting on River Bay.

I get down to the ground and nod for Gia to follow.

We slip into the woods. Just as we hit the shadows, I hear someone call out. They've noticed the fallen guards.

I grab Gia's hand and pull her deeper into the woods.

When we get to the edge of the bay, Gia pulls me to a stop. This isn't a beach. It's a boggy swamp. Fireflies dart around, and some kind of green vines hang down from the trees. "Haymitch, you have to go back."

"Not until I know you're safe," I say.

"Haymitch-"

"I mean it. I'll come up with something. I'll tell them I was looking for you, too. But I'm getting you to whatever Blight set up. You're a city girl. You won't last five minutes if they're looking for you."

She nods. "Okay. Thank you." She looks around. "Ollie said to look for the fairy-slippers. Those are flowers that grow around District Seven, but not here naturally. Kind of a bright magenta."

I don't see anything at first. We make our way along the swampy banks, going the same direction as the river. After about five minutes, Gia spots the first flower. It's nestled in the mud. I would have thought it belonged here. There's another a few yards beyond it.

"There you are."

I stop.

The Peacekeeper who ran into the woods ahead of us is standing in front of us now, his gun raised.

"I can explain," Gia says, putting a kind of embarrassed giggle behind her words. "It's just… the smell of the flowers, all the growing things… You know how it is. We just wanted to get away. I hope we haven't caused any problems."

The Peacekeeper moves closer. "Lady, you have no idea what's coming. You-"

He stops mid-sentence as Gia brings her shoe around in a hard arc, smashing into his head. He trips back, dazed, then Gia reaches over and grabs my knife. Before I realize what she's doing, she's cut his throat.

"Gia-"

"I'm sorry, Haymitch. But I had to. He saw you with me."

"But - "

"I'm not a saint. And it's better that I did it. I'll be gone. You won't be guilty of anything."

She heads off along the trail.

I look at the dead Peacekeeper, and I'm back in the arena, staring at Crispus Bidwell, at Donnell Moran.

I follow her.

The trail of flowers goes down beyond the lights of the fueling station, into a cove draped with vines. Beyond the vines, I see the tiniest hint of a flickering flame.

Gia stops at the boundary. She wipes her hand on her skirt, leaving a red smear. "I think this is it."

"Let's find out. It could be a trap."

I lift up the vines. There is a raft floating in the lagoon, tethered to a tree on the muddy bank. On it is a lantern shaded by a net.

Something moves through the water and I put myself between it and Gia, but when it emerges, I see that it's a man. He rises up, water dripping off him in a river, and looks at us. He's pale-skinned and red-headed, and his skin has the look that Danny's does when he spends too much time in the sun - rough and peeling. He smiles.

Gia nods.

The man picks up a handful of flowers and sets them on the raft. "They're far away," he says. "No one ever comes down here. I thought I was just taking one?"

"Just me," Gia says. "Haymitch is going to go back."

The man frowns. "You better work your way back upstream, before they decide to have a closer look in the direction you're coming from."

"I'll just swim out and let them rescue me," I say. "Stupid drunk Haymitch tried to swim the Bay."

"Well, watch out for the gators." He grins obnoxiously.

"The whats?"

"Don't worry. There aren't many this far north. They like warmer water. And they're probably well-fed enough to ignore you."

"Listen," Gia says, "we're nervous enough."

The man laughs. "Aw, just breaking the ice a little. I haven't seen a gator up here in years, and I sneak up at least a few times. The best shellfish are up here, and it's easy to slip the mines on a little raft. Then just pole up the shallows, and there's a fortune to be made."

"Who are you?" I ask.

"Names are tricky things," he says. "It's usually better not to ask for them." He leans over the lantern and puts it out, leaving only the full moon dappling down through the vines for light. "And now that you've found your way, I think it's best to get rid of the clue, don't you?"

"Yes, I think so. Ollie said that he coded me as a kind of fish. What kind did he say I was?"

"A fine catfish filet," the man says. "But you certainly look tastier."

"Maybe I should go with you after all," I suggest.

"Blight's not paying me enough to smuggle a victor." The man gets onto the raft. "Sorry, but it's true. If you want your friend to get out safe, the best thing you can do is get far away from her, and if you happen to see a gorgeous redhead wandering around in District Four in the future, know that you've never once in your life met her, and you won't know her name. Are you good on that, kid? Because this is a wash if you're going to be playing a lovesick puppy."

"He's looking out for me," Gia says.

"I know. And I respect that. But he needs to understand that you're going to disappear. After tonight, there will literally _be_ no Gia Pepper to be found. She won't exist. Do you understand that, kid?"

"I'm not an idiot."

He looks at me through squinted eyes. "No. You're not an idiot, are you?" He shakes his head. "Look, Blight and I go way back. We've been trading back and forth for years. He started trading with my dad on _his_ victory tour. I won't let anything happen to her. And I won't do anything bad myself, since I can see that look in your eyes, like, 'Who the hell is this and why should I trust him?'"

"Well, who the hell are you, and why should I trust you?"

"Because Gia trusts Blight, and Blight trusts me."

"And that's as good as it's going to get, isn't it?"

"That's all I've got to offer." He looks up at the moon. "We haven't got long before they realize that Gia's not the only one gone. Say your goodbyes. I'll… I'll see about some crawdads. Way over there." He slips back into the water and swims for the far end of the lagoon.

Gia takes my hand and sits down on a moss-covered rock. I sit beside her. There's still blood on her skirt, but the trek through the swamp has mostly washed it off her skin. I hate that she had to do that. I think about Maysilee and her blow gun. I want to run into the woods and find the end of it all.

"It'll be all right," she says. "Haymitch, you'll be all right."

"Yeah. Sure."

She puts her arms around me and holds me, not like she did in District Six, but like she did when I woke up screaming after Digger died... a comfort in the cold. "Promise me something," she says. "And I mean it - a sincere, real promise."

"What?"

She pulls away. "Don't you ever climb that hanging tree again. I know it's horrible back there. I know you're all alone, and I'm not going to pretend that Snow's not just going to keep on coming for you. But don't do his work for him. You promise me that I won't be watching the news some night, just to hear someone make a joke about you falling out of a tree or off a balcony. Drinking yourself to death. Promise me I won't ever hear that."

I open my mouth to promise her, but I'm not sure it's a promise I can keep. Nothing comes out.

She puts her hands on my face. "Haymitch, _please_. I need you to promise."

I can't say anything for a long time. I just look into her green eyes, pleading with me. I memorize them, so that when I start looking for a new hanging tree to climb, I'll remember them, and stop. "I won't kill myself," I whisper at last. "I…" I look down.

She bites her lip. "Haymitch, finish. Please."

"I… promise."

She nods. "Then I'll be okay."

"When we finish it - all of it - will you find me again?"

"If I can."

I nod. "I wish you didn't have to go."

"Me, too. Not least because I know what's waiting for you in the Capitol. Don't let Snow get you started 'entertaining.' Do whatever you need to if it gets you out of it. He'll start testing the waters while you're in the Capitol this time. Make sure he knows the water's rough, okay?"

"Okay." I let go of her hand and stand up. "Gia, I'm sorry. If I hadn't written that stupid book, if you hadn't needed to come out and… _babysit_ me…"

"I came because you needed someone. And as for your book? Plutarch is going to get it into the right hands. You'll see. Things like that, they don't make a difference you see right away, but they _do_ make a difference."

"But if you hadn't hidden it - "

"Then they would have gotten me on something else," she says firmly. "They've been watching me. I knew that going in."

There's a motion in the water, and the man from District Four resurfaces. "You'd better hurry," he says. "The lights have gone on up the track. They know you're missing."

I nod and look at Gia again. "Good luck." I turn to go, then turn back. "Can I kiss you goodbye?"

"Yes. I'd like that."

I kiss her. It isn't furtive or strange, like it was in District Six, but it's also not real for her. I know that, even though she kisses me back this time.

When we part, she smiles at me. "Someday, some girl is going to be very, very lucky."

"Right," I say. "Until they kill her." I look down. The knife I took is beside the rock, that last bit of the arena. "You keep the knife," I say. "In case of… gators. Whatever they are."

"I'll do that."

A heavy hand falls on my arm, and the man is looking at me apologetically. "I know it's hard, kid, but we have to get you far away. Can you hold onto me and hold your breath?"

I nod. "Goodbye, Gia. And… thanks."

It doesn't seem to be enough, but I can't think of anything else. She stands there looking at me, her eyes shiny with tears. I think I'll be seeing them in my head for a very long time. "Wherever I am," she says, "and _whoever_ I am, I'll love you. You'll remember that, right?"

I try to say that I will, but there's a large lump in my throat, and I can't speak, so I just nod.

"Stay here," the man tells her. "I'll be back in five minutes, but we're not leaving until the train is gone."

He holds out his arm. I grab it and hold my breath, and then I'm being dragged through the water at high speed. We surface quietly twice to take a breath - the look on his face is enough to tell me not to gasp - then finally surface far away from the lagoon.

"Be careful," he whispers, close to my ear. "Wait two minutes, then start yelling for help. Can you keep afloat for two minutes?"

I nod.

"I'll take care of her," he says, then disappears under the water. I see him surface once, and don't see him again.

I tread water, which I'm not very good at, though Digger taught me a long time ago. I can see the train now, and the tracks, lit up for miles. People are rushing around, guns raised.

By the time I feel like it's safe to shout, it's not an act. My legs are worn out and I feel like I'm going to go under.

Someone yells, "There he is!" and then there is a flurry of activity. A small hover-craft comes out over the bay, like the corpse collector in the arena, and I latch onto it. As soon as I'm up, a Peacekeeper shakes me violently, and then the world goes red, then black.

I wake up in my carriage. The train is moving again. Two Peacekeepers are standing by my door, and a third is at the foot of my bed with a syringe. "Where is she?" he asks.

"What?"

"Pelagia Pepper. You helped her off the train."

My brain is fuzzy. I don't know what they've given me. But I hold onto one thing: They can't follow up on where Gia has gone. "I don't know," I say. "I saw she was off the train. I thought I saw her shoe… by the water. And footsteps going upstream." I think of her there in the lagoon, the tears in her eyes, begging me not to climb the hanging tree. It gives me an idea. "I… I thought she might have drowned. She kept talking about the Mississippi. I thought she jumped into it! I know she was upset in District Six. I tried to find her. Really. Only I don't swim, and -"

I see the Peacekeeper's fist twitch, but he doesn't raise his hand at a victor. "I think you're full of crap," he says.

"It's the truth," I say. "I just wanted to find her. I'm sorry if you wasted time getting to me. I wasn't thinking."

"Where did she go?"

"I don't know! Are you going to drag the bay? She could be hurt!"

"There's no reason to drag the damned bay. She made a run for it. Killed a Peacekeeper in the woods on her way out. Good man. He had a mother he was taking care of. Does she have connections in the out-districts? Or does she _think_ she does? Because if that's where she's going, if she's running off with some romantic notion of joining the raiders, she's going to get a rude awakening. They aren't exactly gentle with women, if you follow. So if you're worried about her getting hurt, you tell me if she went off with them."

"I don't know! I really don't!"

The Peacekeeper turns to the guards. "One of you - we have intelligence about a camp about forty miles north of here. She could have signaled them from the train. Burn it to the ground… kill all of them. And anyone with them."

"No!"

"Why? Is your girlfriend with them?"

"No, but why would you kill all those people?"

He snorts. "Most of them are escaped convicts. And before you get pretty ideas, most of them were in for crimes like murder and arson and assault and rape - they're not nice guys just waiting to give you and your little friend a hand. Ask your friends in District Eleven - they get stolen from all the time. And not just the crops." He looks back at the guards. "What are you waiting for?"

One of them stammers, "I thought you were just trying to get him to…"

"No, the camp is getting wiped out anyway. Sooner rather than later, but hey, one less rat's nest out there. I'm not going to cry about it."

I sink back into the pillows. "What am I going to do without her?"

The Peacekeeper snorts. "You're going to keep doing what you've been doing, though I'll bet your new escort won't be quite as accommodating. You're heading for prep now, and they'll get you cleaned up, and when we get to District Four, you're going to act like nothing in the world is wrong. Are you clear on that?"

I'm clear enough on what he wants, but I'm not sure I can do it. My legs feel like they've been coated in rock, and my heart seems to be pumping cold water through my body. "I - "

"You're going to do it," he says. "Or I promise you, you'll regret it. I can contact Lucretia Beckett in Twelve at a snap of my fingers. Tell her to _investigate_ anyone close to you, in case they helped. Do you want me to do that?"

I shake my head.

"Then get up and get to prep. Now."

I force my legs over the side of the bed and grab blindly at a table to steady myself on the moving train. No one offers to help me.

I make my way up to the prep room. If Medusa has noticed that her knife is missing, she says nothing as she washes my hair in warm water. Fabiola wraps warm towels around my head, and pours hot tea down my throat. Igerna frets at the state of my skin after my time in the bay. They don't gossip. They don't talk to me. But every now and then, I feel a slightly longer, reassuring touch. I'm glad of it.

Lepidus doesn't talk to me much as he dresses me, either. It will be a cheerful kind of green sweater today, and apparently, I won't need any outerwear in District Four.

I ask for the kill list. I know both boys from Four were in the pack that attacked me when Maysilee saved me, but I don't remember which of them I killed, and which she did. It's the first time I'll be in a district where I killed one of their kids. I wonder if Medusa has another knife with that boy's name on it. Lepidus doesn't know what I'm talking about, but when he sees that I'm getting wound up enough to start picking wildly at my clothes, he runs to the media room for a copy of the highlight reel. I don't watch as he fast-forwards to the battle, and can't stand listening during the attack, but he's able to tell me that it was Moran I killed. He was the first to attack. Then I killed Bidwell, from Two. Then Maysilee shot Kavan Carroll.

"How do I talk about that?"

"I have Gia's cards," Lepidus says. "They've been read, of course, to make sure she wasn't leaving you a message, but… she'll get you through."

I take the cards and hold onto them for dear life. Gia was careful, as always, with the words. She doesn't have me directly addressing the fact that the boys are dead because they attacked me. I'm to praise their strength and stamina. I have heard victors give this speech in Twelve every year. I guess I can do it. I also guess it won't stop them from hating me - it never did in Twelve - but I can do it.

We pull into District Four late in the afternoon. I can see the ocean, but we are behind schedule, and the tour of the beach that Gia had set up for me is cut out. I will speak to no one.

The Peacekeepers all but shove me out of the train and onto the platform, and I am locked into the car on the ride to town.

The car finally stops outside a building made of stone that's been painted a bluish color, with fading tile fish catching the sun. No one opens the door. I can see a group of Peacekeepers gathered at the entrance to the building, along with many Capitol attendants. And…

I close my eyes, willing away what I'm pretty sure I'm seeing, but when I open them, it's still there.

A man breaks away from the group. He is wearing a severe, sleeveless suit - a kind of a tunic with metal belt fasteners around it. He can't be young - before Gia, he was the District Twelve escort since they started _having_ regular escorts - but he's altered himself so much that it's hard to tell. His skin is pulled up tight, and his face is tattooed to look like a jeweled skull. His hair is green (today) and swirled up like whipped cream on top of a poisoned dessert.

He clicks something he's holding, and the door unlocks. He opens it.

"Hello," he says coolly. "I take it you're my new victor. My name is Ausonius Glass."


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven**  
Glass tries to force another script into my hand as we're herded up to the balcony of the Justice Building, but I manage to get on the far side of Lepidus from him, and pretend not to see it. I give Gia's speech. I try not to look at Moran's family, but I can't help it. They're glaring at me. For a second, I lose track of what I'm saying - I'm back in the arena, trapped by three bigger boys, all Careers, and I remember thinking that Moran was the weak link, the easiest mark, because he was too confident. Then I remember slicing into his flesh.

Kavan Carroll's family is next over, under a huge picture of him. He was sitting on top of me, completely immobilizing me. If he'd taken one less second to gloat, I'd have been dead, but he hesitated just long enough for Maysilee to kill him. He collapsed on top of me.

Behind me, I hear someone clear his throat. Glass is looking at me with vast distaste.

I finish the speech.

The mayor of District Four, Keith Trillo, is actually fat. People in the Capitol are wild to stay skinny and everyone I've ever met in the districts before is skinny because they can't eat much. I've seen pictures of fat people before, but never actually met one. I feel like he should be congratulated, but I decide that it would probably be rude. Mom always said to never talk about what people's bodies look like.

He presents me with the plaque. The plaques are now stacked almost a foot high back on the train. I have a feeling they're just going to stay in a stack, maybe up in the attic. Or maybe I'll put them up. I've met some halfway decent people. Maybe I can write their names on the backs.

"Now," he says, "I know you've been collecting up recipes, and our friend Mags will give you ours, but we've got an ingredient your friend might find hard to come by inland." He holds up a small plastic dish full of what looks like green slime. "Seaweed. You'll never want your bread without it again." He grins.

I take the seaweed. Seeing it up close and personal doesn't make it look less slimy. "Thank you. Can't wait to find out what this tastes like."

"Well, you're just about on top of your chance to find out. District Four, you give a proper goodbye to the victor, now!"

The audience applauds on this command. I look out into the crowd, wondering if Gia is hiding there someplace, but on second thought, I guess it's not very likely. The raft wouldn't have gone faster than the train, and they were waiting until after we left to take off.

I am led back into the Justice Building. It is about the opposite of District Six - one high glass wall looks out onto the sunny ocean, and a fountain sparkles in the light. Most of the interior structure is built of some kind of translucent plastic, molded into waves. Embedded lights change their colors, and there's a quiet shushing sound piped in. It's very pretty. It doesn't change the fact that I can see tarpaper shacks marching down to the sea about a mile from here, with clotheslines strung between them. But it's pretty. White birds circle over the water, and a humid haze makes the sunlight seem almost tangible.

I guess it's okay for Gia to live here, if she has to live in the districts. It doesn't seem as bad as the others.

A hand wraps around my upper arm, the grip much stronger than I would have guessed. Glass gives me a wicked smile. The tattoos on his face (which are actually worked around embedded stones of some kind) make every expression look vaguely threatening. "Prep," he says.

"I know the drill."

"And we're going to get to know one another a little bit."

"Great."

He shoves me into an elevator that travels up through the color-changing waves, and does not let go of me the whole way up to the top floor, where we're deposited in a white hallway lined with blue doors. He pushes me through one of them. My preps are nearly shaking in their shoes as they start the routine.

Once I'm pinned down at the skin and nail care station, glass pulls up a stool and sits in front of me, way too close. Igerna has to pull my arm way off to the side to file my nails.

"Just so we're completely clear, I am not here to be your servant," Glass says. "Nor am I here to keep you all warm and snug at night."

"I'm crushed."

"I am here to keep you on script. Your job, for which you are being paid quite handsomely, is to speak for the Capitol and keep the people entertained. I'm not sure that Pelagia Pepper was ever entirely clear with you on that."

I don't answer.

"If I hand you a script, you will read it. You will smile when you do it."

"But his teeth…" Fabiola squeaks.

Glass glares at her until she looks down and starts scurrying around the dental station. He looks back at me. "You're not paid to live in obscurity. Your life belongs to the audience. They don't want to be lectured or implicitly reprimanded by your behavior. They want to have a few good laughs. They will want to root for their favorite pairings for you. They will want to know your favorite breakfast food, your most painful secrets - provided that those secrets are entertaining - and your most embarrassing screw-ups. On the last, I suspect they will not be left wanting. From everything I have observed about you, and everything your mentor told me, screw-ups will be a regular occurrence if you're not being constantly reined in. I do not intend to be your babysitter."

I wait for Igerna to let go of my hand, then make the most vulgar gesture I know at Glass.

He slaps it away. "And no matter what, you're going to be having the time of your life. Parties. Clothes. All the money you can spend on yourself. Girls. Boys, if they're your thing… though I'd advise against it seeming exclusive. Girls are your primary fans in that regard, and you will not disappoint them." He reconsiders. "Though I imagine some of them would rather enjoy the thought of you with a suitably attractive boy from time to time."

"Not really my thing."

"Up to now," he says, "your 'thing' appears to be mooning over a traitor ten years older than you are, and ignoring every other offer. Some of your more maudlin fans imagine you to be in mourning for your lost arena love. Most are just wondering if you know what you're doing at all."

"Maybe I don't want to end up with relatives all over Panem."

Glass makes a disgusted noise. "You can't possibly have reached sixteen without knowing how to prevent that." He reaches into the purse he's carrying and tosses out a string of foil wrappers. It lands on my lap. "There," he says. "That should take care of it. Most of these girls will know exactly what to do with those."

"I don't even _know_ these girls!"

"What in the world would you need to know them for?" He waves this away. "At any rate, the standoffish attitude stops now. You're not out here to offer a lesson on sobriety and chastity. You're going to be seen having fun, not looking like you're on some sort of… religious pilgrimage. I've instructed Lepidus to start dressing you like you're at a party instead of a funeral." He wrinkles his nose. "There are men in the Capitol who spend their days sitting on sharp rocks at the lake shore, gouging themselves with their fingernails. So far, they have been more entertaining than your victory tour."

"I've seen other victory tours. Not everyone - "

"There are different expectations of different victors. You set the expectation at the banquet following the first viewing. Your character was made quite explicit, and the audience quite enjoyed it. People expect you to party."

"I wasn't partying. I was trying to drown out pain from an axe wound."

He snorts. "You keep telling yourself that. But I assure you, there is not one fan out there who cares about your precious pain." He finally leans back out of my space. "You'll also avoid the 'smart' talk and book lectures. I suppose there is a small group that might find that entertaining, but they aren't your target audience. Your target audience wants the boy who fought his way through the arena with a knife and a pretty girl at his side. They are not book people."

"Why can't I just find my own fans?"

"Because that is not your job." He rifles through some papers. "That established, your schedule is set out decently enough for the remaining districts. Tonight, you will meet several District Four victors. This is a loyal district, so I do not recommend engaging in any seditious talk with them. It will get back to me, and I will make you quite sorry."

I don't answer, but I decide to see if Medusa has another knife. I don't want to be in this man's presence unarmed.

He stands up. "I can see by the look on your face that you find me something of a disappointment. I don't blame you. I'm sure there were many quite tangible benefits to working with a woman of Miss Pepper's somewhat loose character, none of which will be part of our relationship. But you may find yourself somewhat freer to express your true nature now." He turns to go.

"Glass?"

He looks back over his shoulder.

"If you ever so much as _mention_ Gia to me again, I'll slice your tongue out and feed it to you. Just so we're completely clear."

He wrinkles his nose. The lines of his tattoo move into a predatory pattern. "You are nothing. Do you understand that fully? Winning the Games means you were _in_ the Games, and that means you're nothing but a traitor. I was in the Green Tower when it fell. A child myself, in care while my parents worked. I crawled over the bodies of more children that day than have died in the Games since. You district brats adopt your wounded stance all you like. I know what you really are. You should all get down on your knees to thank President Snow for being so lenient. He crawled out of there as well, you know. There is no amount of pain that will suffice to pay for what you did."

He leaves without saying anything else.

I don't know what I'm expected to say to this pronouncement. I suppose my great-grandfather could use a good strong talking to about being on the side of a war that once dropped a bomb in the Capitol, after five years of fighting, and accidentally hit a school. He should have known better. Or told the bombers from Thirteen that _they_ should have known better. Or something. I don't feel particularly responsible for it. Personally, I'd think that bombing Thirteen - children included - into radioactive rubble would be more than sufficient payback, but what do I know?

My preps are quiet as they finish up the routine. When Fabiola does my teeth, she tentatively says, "You'll, um… get used to Ausonius. He can be intense, but he… um… " She smiles faintly. "Well, you'll get used to him. We all worked with him for years before Miss Pepper came." She looks down and starts working intensively on some stain at the back of my mouth.

Lepidus arrives to dress me, and I can tell by the look on his face that I'm not going to like it. In place of the comfortable sweaters and silk shirts, I only have a pair of pants made of what might actually be leather, and a vest. No shirt under the vest. And there's jewelry.

"Really?"

He nods. "And Igerna will make you up."

"Make-up?"

"It won't be like this at the Games. He always left Duronda alone when he had the tributes to dress."

"Oh, good. So it'll be my friends, just before they die."

He doesn't meet my eyes. "Here. You probably want to powder your legs before you put the pants on. Maybe we should wax…"

In the end, he opts not to wax. I somehow get myself into the ridiculous outfit. I'm glad I've put on a few pounds, or I'd look like a skeleton that someone was trying to hold together with leather straps. It doesn't leave much to the imagination as it is. There's a special little pocket on the outside, just the right size for one of Glass's little foil packs. Lepidus gives me one without comment, and I tuck it away.

We go down to the banquet.

For the first time, there's a full complement of glasses at my place, and a pitcher of something in front of me that smells minty on top, but full of promise under it.

"That's a mint julep," an older man says beside me. "Our local drink. Packs a little kick."

"Oh. Well…"

"Try it," Glass orders. "Don't insult your host."

"Oh, it's no insult," the man says. "It ain't to everyone's taste, of course…"

"Oh, it will be to Haymitch's." He looks between me and the man I'm talking to. "Do you know who this is?"

He looks familiar, but no one ever looks the same in person as they do on television, which I'm guessing is where I'm supposed to know him from. I shake my head.

"You're talking to the oldest living victor, Rogan Lally. Second Games."

"The year before your Duronda," he says. "She was a sweet thing. I was sorry when she passed, though I hadn't really seen her since Benit Preeto took over for me as a mentor, and Rivie Jasso over there took over for him after his… accident. Did you know Duronda?"

"She sometimes came out and talked to people," I say. I personally never met her, but Digger did. And of course, I almost hanged myself from the same tree she used to get off this ride.

"Aw, she was a pretty thing when she won. And we had ourselves some times in the Capitol. Mags!" he calls. "What year was it when you and Duronda played that prank with the whipped cream on old Candria Light?"

A middle-aged woman with curly black hair wanders over. "That was Saffron Abatty's year. I remember - she was on screen when it happened. That was the year it was always raining, and she was yelling about being sick of being wet." The woman comes over and sits down across from me. She extends her hand. "Mags Donovan," she says. "Seventh Games. Welcome to our disturbing little club."

"I was just pouring him a mint julep," Rogan says.

"Are you sure about that? You know how it was with Benit."

"This boy ain't Benit. He's just a partier, and you ain't partied in District Four until you've had a julep or two."

He pushes the mint julep at me. I drink it. It tastes sweet and minty, like the mouthwash Fabiola makes me use when she cleans my teeth, but whatever's under it is strong. It goes straight to my head. I finish it and pour myself another. Mags slips me the bread recipe, which is free of bird symbols, and I put it into the pouch.

By the time the food comes, I am having a very pleasant conversation with Rogan, Mags, and two of District Four's other victors, Rivie Jasso and Hennesy Doolin. There are two more out there, plus the dead Benit Preeto, and it sounds like everyone in District Four wants to go to the arena. They almost always team up with Districts One and Two, which is pretty stupid, since One and Two almost always kill them.

"I say that _every year_," Mags agrees, downing her own drink. "But do they listen to me?" She shakes her head. "You'll learn. You do everything you can for those kids, then they get in the arena, and don't do one damned thing you tell them."

"And then what?" I ask. "You just… forget about them?"

"Not even one of them," Mags says. "I remember them all. You will, too."

When dessert comes, I don't even really remember what we already ate, though I know it was some kind of sweet-tasting seafood with spicy red sauce. There's dancing after. District Four is an inner district, and it's more like the Capitol. I have to dance with girls and boys both. I stop with the juleps, and switch to straight bourbon. I wonder if I'm going to teach one of my friends to kill one of my dancing partners next year.

The music goes slow for a while, and I lean against a brown-haired girl whose name I didn't catch. She pulls me around in a few rotations, then leads me out to an alcove. She finds the little pocket and the little foil-wrapped thing. Glass was right - she knows exactly what to do with it.

Things get fuzzy after that. I know I go looking for a bathroom and throw up, and for a while, I lie curled up on the cold tile floor, sweating. I get it into my head that I can smell Digger in my sweat, and I start apologizing to her over and over. I hear a high-pitched laugh somewhere, but I never find out where it comes from. Then there's a gray time. I think Mags Donovan helps me up and gets me moving, but I don't know when she gets there, or when she relinquishes me to someone else. There's a car, and flashbulbs, and then there's the train, and then I'm out of it until someone batters on my door and tells me to get up for prep, before we get to District Three.

My preps give me a few pills to get rid of the hangover and the sour stomach. I think one of them also wakes me up a little bit. The television is on while they clean me up, and I'm the main story - lurching drunkenly around the District Four Justice Building, hanging on a girl wearing too much make-up. They even get a shot of Mags dragging me back to the main hall.

Igerna snickers. "They didn't show her lighting into Glass. Too bad."

"She lit into Glass?"

"Slapped him right across the face - probably cut her hand on those little jewel things in his tattoo, but she had her say."

"About what?"

"I don't know. Something about you drinking."

"What did Glass say?"

"That you were a grown up and he didn't force feed you." She shrugs and gets to moisturizing my hands. "Then she lit into that girl you were with."

I try to remember the girl, in some way other than the shots on television. I mostly remember a lot of groping, and that she made a lot of noise. I try to imagine what Mom would have to say about this. I can't do it, because I can't even imagine having done it if I'd known she'd be here and have something to say.

We get to Three late in the afternoon. I remember to pretend that Sigh Tomby was my ally, and praise him in my speech, even though our interaction was limited to me sitting beside him while he died from poisoned water. I am glad to see Beetee in the Justice Building - I haven't seen him since he gave me a tour of the national library while I was in recovery - but he hasn't been invited to the banquet. He gives me a recipe with one hastily drawn bird on it, and suggests that I would like to order a new music player soon.

District Three is an anonymous city built up on the wastelands across the lake from the Capitol. The ground is almost blindingly white, and by the time I get to the banquet, I'm so sun-dazzled that I can barely see my way around. The Justice Building is filled with wonderful little gadgets, and I am promised time to play with them later, but of course, I don't get around to it. The drink here is a perfectly dignified white wine. It does the trick as well as anything else, and I don't remember much past my fourth cup. I think I manage to not get into any girl trouble, as there's none reported on the news the next morning.

Glass smugly tells me that he knew I'd be happier if he just let me be myself.

We stay the night on the train in Three. I'm not sure why. Plutarch comes to see me. He looks disgusted, but can't very well say why. He just hisses, "You're not helping us."

I wander up and down the train. Glass has taken his own quarters; Gia's are closed off for searching in the Capitol. I look through the window and see her clothes in the wardrobe.

It's not hard to break the seal on the door. I go in and smell her things - the soft scent of her perfume, the shampoo she uses… or used to use. I guess she'll use the same lye soap the rest of us in the Districts use now. This doesn't seem fair. I see the book she was reading, her ladybug hairpin still holding her place. I open the book. She left off on a page where the amateur detective is captured by the serial killer. I guess she'll never know how it works out. I take the hairpin and put it in my pocket, then, on second thought, grab the book. I decide to finish it for her. It doesn't take long.

I fall asleep on her bed, and wake up to a cacophonous search. Glass manhandles me to prep and tells me to stay where people know I am.

I go to prep, where the ladies have stopped gossiping altogether. The television is on. For two districts in a row now, I've made the list of worst-dressed public figures. A comic troupe does a dance wearing what they "predict" to be my future costumes… gradually vanishing bits of tight cloth that end up with a boy who comes out on stage in nothing but spray paint. I really hope Lepidus isn't watching. I don't want him to get ideas. Another comic has put together a whole routine about me, slurring his way through a satire of the Games, implying that I only got through on luck, which favors drunks and idiots. We watch it all the way through.

I go to my car, and worm my way into the tight suit Lepidus has laid out for the District Two festivities. It's bright red, and has a matching hat. I'm reasonably sure I'll make another worst-dressed list, but on the whole, I guess I can't take that very seriously coming out of a city where people wear feathers around their privates.

Glass gives me a speech for District Two that makes fun of Crispus Bidwell for being dumb enough to attack me. I ignore it and ad lib the sort of thing Gia would have given me, about how Bidwell was extraordinarily strong, and must have been clever to get as far as he did. Glass's script is probably more truthful, but the truth isn't all it's cracked up to be.

After I'm done, Glass grabs my arm so tightly that it hurts and drags me to the district prep area. "I told you I'd make you sorry," he says.

I shove him back. "Don't ever put words like that in my mouth. If you want to catch me screwing up, that's fine. I do it enough. But don't _ever_ do that again. I'm not going to badmouth other tributes."

"You seemed fine with it on Caesar's stage."

"They were still alive then."

He raises his hand at me, and I grab a mirror from the dressing table. I smash it against the wall and hold a jagged piece up.

He stops. "You wouldn't."

"Yeah?" I wave it at him. "Did you forget how I got here?"

I think it may actually come to a fight. Glass doesn't look ready to back down, and I actually _want_ to cut him.

There's a knock at the door.

"Busy," Glass snaps.

The door opens. The man who steps in is dressed casually, as he was in the Capitol, and the look of distaste in his eyes when he looks at me hasn't changed one bit… though the distaste in his eyes when he looks at Glass is even worse.

"Threatening a victor, Glass?" Albinus Drake says dryly. "That's a hell of a way to end up with your insides on the outside." He turns to me. "Don't tell me you're putting up with this crap, Genius."


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight**  
I have no idea what I'm supposed to say to Drake, who was my supposed mentor through the Games. He made no secret of the fact that he didn't care whether I lived or died, and treated Maysilee like she was a groupie. I just frown at him.

"Give it a rest, Glass," he says, and gestures toward the door.

"You can't dismiss me," Glass says. "You have no authority."

"You can take it up with the Gamemakers," Drake says. "Or we can just see whether or not my spear arm is still good. Your call."

Glass straightens up and turns, his nose up disdainfully. "I will most _certainly_ discuss it with the Gamemakers," he says.

"You do that." Drake watches until he disappears down the hall, then closes the door. "Since I'm your mentor, let's get a lesson in. There's _us_, and there's _them_." He nods toward the closed door. "I don't like you much. I guess you know that. But you're one of _us_ now, which means you outrank Glass."

"Wow. Thanks. I'm touched."

"Right. The attitude. I didn't miss that." Drake takes a seat. "The thing is, whatever one of us puts up with, eventually, we all have to put up with. Right now, we're doing pretty well with not letting escorts run the show. Glass always thought he should be in charge, but Duronda always kept him in his place, and last year, when he tried this crap with the District One victors, they collectively demanded that the Gamemakers reassign him. I believe Miracle Brea told them they could either reassign him or find him in pieces." He gives an indifferent shrug. "Of course, you're pretty much at the bottom of the barrel, same as Duronda was, so you won't stand a chance at something like that. You're pretty much stuck with each other. But you don't give him one more inch. Got it?"

"My stylist and my preps are scared of him."

"So?"

"So… can't he fire them if they don't put me in what he says?"

"Again, there's _us_ and _them._ Guess which side your stylist and preps are."

"They're okay."

"Maybe. And honestly, whatever Glass has been doing, your tour just got a whole lot more interesting to people, so you should keep it up on your own. He knows the entertainment part of it. But you never _ever_ let him think he can grab you or push you anywhere, or all the sudden, we're all going to be bowing down to jackasses in feathered pants. Cut him if you have to -"

"Isn't that the kind of thing even a victor could end up in jail over?"

"Maybe here. We have fourteen victors. They had to build extra houses in the Village. But you're the only victor from your district. Snow won't get at you for anything unless you actually commit treason. Taking a slice out of Ausonius Glass is more like a public service. They'd probably play it as you just having a wild and crazy side."

"I thought they were friends - Snow and Glass. He made it sound like -"

Drake snorts. "Snow doesn't have friends. Just sycophants out to improve their position, and crazy acolytes like Glass. I bet Glass is crazy enough to believe Snow's his friend. He'd find out otherwise pretty quickly if he asked Snow to choose between a victor and an escort."

I let this sink in. "What about the speeches? He wants to write them. He wanted me to make fun of Bidwell."

"The Capitol can tell you what not to say - you can't do anything about that, or about anything Snow takes it in his head to do - but you can definitely control what you _do_ say. And I promise you one other thing - if you'd said that, he'd act like it was your idea. You know the rest of it is coming off as being your choice, now that you don't have Mama Hen telling you what to do now, right?"

"I've seen what they put on television. It's the same thing they did after you told me to have a drink at the banquet in the Capitol, and I didn't notice you going up and correcting anyone's impression."

"Exactly what would have been a correction? I told you to have one drink to deal with the pain issue. You're the one who decided to hit half the president's wine cellar. What are you - one of those guys who just can't stop until the last drop is gone? I kind of thought so after you got drunk in the training center…"

"I can stop any time I want."

"Then it _is_ your choice."

"Yeah. Sure."

He sighs. "I didn't come in to fight with you. I was actually supposed to bring a truce flag."

"Supposed to?"

"We had a meeting in the Village. There were only five invites to go around, so you won't meet everyone. But - with one abstention - we decided you might end up a decent ally."

"You were the abstention?"

"No. Brutus. He doesn't approve of the way you played the Game. Not that it kept him from taking the invitation. He loves anything to do with the Games. For myself, I think we could use someone who can figure out what the Gamemakers are thinking."

I shake my head. "Kids from District Twelve wouldn't stand a chance at melee with District Two. I wouldn't have made it past Bidwell and his friends from Four if they'd realized Maysilee was nearby and neutralized her."

"We can talk about that at the Games," he says. "Meanwhile, truce?" He holds out his hand.

"The things you said to Maysilee…"

"Maybe I was a little out of line. And maybe I'd been drinking a little bit, too. You'll see. Time goes by. You'll see."

He continues to extend his hand. I look over it and say nothing.

He grinds his teeth. "Fine. I apologize. I'm sorry. Is that what you want?"

I nod and shake his hand. It's nowhere near enough, but I can't think what else he could do. It's not like Maysilee's here for him to apologize to.

He leaves and Lepidus comes in with tonight's costume - a tight, glittery black suit, with a weirdly oversized velvet jacket. I ask him if he can back off on it, maybe get something a little looser and without sparkles, but he goes into such a panic attack that I let up and just put the damned suit on. Medusa puts glitter in my hair as well. I start to tell her not to, but then I see that she has finger-shaped bruises on her wrist. She vehemently denies that Glass had anything to do with it. Her hands are shaking so badly that as much glitter lands on the rug as in my hair. She starts to cry. I take her hand and squeeze it until she calms down. She kisses my cheek, then goes back to my hair.

Glass comes back just before the banquet.

"I hope," he says, "that you didn't take the experience of District Two as a template. There will be somewhat less leeway in a… more rebellious district."

I stand up. "I don't believe you." He opens his mouth to argue, but I shove him against the wall. "And if I ever see Lepidus or any of the preps with bruises again - you know, never mind 'again.'" I grab his wrist and squeeze until he cries out. "If they show up with bruises, every single bruise is getting paid back to you. Clear?"

He pulls away from me, rubbing his wrist. "Get ready for the procession. We'll have another discussion later. You're going to learn your place."

"I think my mentor just taught me my place," I say, and head out without waiting. He insists on going immediately ahead of me. I go in last, of course - the star of the show.

District Two doesn't so much host a banquet as a lavish party. Buffet tables are set up, and people drift around, eating whatever is put out. I run into Brutus, who says that victors here pool half a month's salary each to make a better Victory Tour. He also gives me a recipe card for Danny, which he says comes from another victor who couldn't get a ticket. I check it for feathers or birds - nothing… though there's a wavy line at the bottom, like someone started to draw, then stopped.

Since Brutus is last year's winner, there's a lot of press around to record us talking to each other. Brutus seems to thrive on it. He leads me around the party, dropping nuggets of wisdom with great largesse… mostly his opinion on the best stores to shop from in the Capitol, the best restaurants to go to during the Games, and which, of all the Capitol celebrities he's met, is most likely to "go tails-up" for a victor.

"They think it's exotic," he says. "Doing the deed with someone from the Districts."

"Do those get set up for you?" I ask, thinking about Gia's warnings.

He laughs. "I see you've been listening to rumors. Don't. That's way overblown. Someone got his nose out of joint… well, not his nose, I guess… because someone said something wrong and the next thing, we've got an urban legend. Trust me, I don't do anything I don't want to. Or anyone. The Capitol treats me great. I got everything I ever wanted. That kind of stuff is just icing on the victory cake." He looks at me. "They hit you because you didn't play right. If you're good from now on - if you stop playing with Snow's head - you don't have anything to worry about."

"And what are they giving you for telling me that?"

"Just telling the truth. Why, do _you_ want to give me something for it?"

"Not really, no."

He slaps me on the shoulder, hard enough that I actually trip a step, though I cover it up. "Let loose and have a little fun," he advises. "Come on. Let's get a drink."

We go up to the bar, and he orders me his favorite whiskey, which, in all fairness, is some damned fine whiskey.

Things get a little fuzzy after that.

At some point, they turn down the lights and a glittery dance floor lights up. Roaming colored spotlights catch it and throw out sparkling beams. Somewhere or other, I lose Brutus, which doesn't bother me too much, since I know what kind of whiskey to order and he didn't seem to have much else to offer. Someone - either Drake or Glass - tells me to get out on the dance floor.

The closer I get to the Capitol - with the weird exception of the staid District Three - the tackier it all seems. I thought the girls I slow-danced with in Eleven were aggressive and almost threatening, but compared to the District Two groupies, they're demure and reserved. This is apparently one of the districts where boys are welcome to make moves, because the crowd around me is about half and half, all of them groping at me and rubbing up against me and bringing me drinks. Warm hands are pretty much warm hands, and pretty much have the same effect.

Someone - I have no idea who - is dragging me off to a coatroom when Drake pulls me out of things. He's about as drunk as I am. We're having a very meaningful conversation for a long time before I realize that he thinks he's talking to Brutus, and I'm giving him a long and detailed social history of District Twelve and why Maysilee was crazy to have ever liked me. I point this out, and we both start laughing. The room is spinning slowly. Out on the dance floor, Brutus is doing the dance they made up for him, which appears to be his only talent.

"Which is one more than _you_ have, Genius," Drake points out, then cracks up and promptly falls asleep with his head on the table.

I order another drink, but Saffron Abatty, who won the ninth Games, decides I've had enough and hauls me outside into the cold mountain air. There's been a snowstorm lately and the plows have dredged up long, triangular snowbanks against the side of the Justice Building.

I can see a little trolley car headed up a mountain. I try to tell Saffron that Mags and Duronda played a prank on Candria Light while she was in the arena, but I can't seem to get the details right. She grabs a fistful of snow and presses it against the back of my neck. I have the impression for a few minutes that she's Mom, and I apologize to her for the drinking, but she breaks it by shoving me down into the snowbank. The world clears up a little, though it's spinning crazily. I throw up in the snow.

She yanks me away from it before I pass out on top of it. She looks at me coldly. "I'll help you stop," she says. "There are a few of us who can help you stop."

"Stop what?"

"If you haven't figured out what you need to stop, then I can't do anything. I didn't figure it out until I woke up in a Capitol hospital half-dead."

"Already did that," I say, and try to get to my feet. I can't quite do it. The snow is uneven. I fall back toward it. "Only it was more than half."

"Yeah, it was. I stayed in town. Word was, your heart stopped three times and they barely got it going again. And now, you're doing your damnedest to finish the job."

"I promised I wouldn't."

"Well, you're breaking that promise." She pulls something out of her coat pocket and puts it in her mouth. There's a little flame in the night. I realize that it's a cigarette. She takes a long drag. "I don't really care, personally, but I don't like giving anyone else a win. Shape you're in, as soon as you get on the train, that escort of yours is going to be all over you."

I scramble around in my brain. Something seems important about this. "He said he'd pum… _put_ me in my place."

"And he will. He put Duronda in hers once, as I understand it." She digs around in her purse. "Duronda was my friend. I know she stayed armed. And I know you aren't." She pulls out something heavy and hands it to me.

I look at it - round hilt, serrated edge, heavy steel. "An arena knife?"

"Mine. I bought it from the Capitol years ago. No one's trying to put me in my place anymore. You keep it."

I feel the weight of it. It's not like holding a knife the night I got Gia off the train. It's more like holding it in my nightmares of the arena. "I don't want it," I say. "I put one in Crispus Bidwell's neck, and it wouldn't come out. It was… there was… stuff on it."

She drags her cigarette again, then pulls it out of her mouth and stomps it moodily into the snow. "We've all been there," she says. "Even Brutus. He pretends it doesn't bother him, but I live next door to him, and sometimes he sleeps with the window open. It doesn't mean you can't defend yourself. Keep the knife. And if you ever get around to figuring out that there's something you need to fix, you talk to me. A bunch of us have a little club at the Games." She thinks about it. "Bring your friend Chaff, too."

I laugh. I can't imagine telling Chaff that a gray-haired woman from District Two wants him to join a stop-drinking club.

She pulls me up and finds some way to arrange my jacket that will hide the knife, as long as I don't move around too much, then she leaves me standing there at the stone rail, staring at the mountain that overlooks District Two's main town. There seem to be lights inside of it. I guess that it's probably just ice reflecting the moonlight.

I let the cold air wake me up a little bit. My stomach is queasy, and I hope my preps have something for that. I feel the weight of the knife in my jacket. When I go back in, I have my hands in the pockets to hide any distortion. It's eleven o'clock when an honor guard from the local school arrives to escort us to the cars. I pretend to be half-passed-out all the way to the train, so I don't have to answer Glass's string of insults.

I fall into bed still in my clothes, but I stay trapped in the strange drunk-land between waking and sleeping. I pull out Saffron's knife and hold onto it. It helps, somehow. I feel the train start to move.

I don't know how long it's been moving when I hear the door open, and a shaft of light from the hall falls across the pillow beside me.

I feel the bed shift. "I owe you a lesson," Glass says. "About staying in your place."

I turn over and show him the knife. I'm glad I have it. Glass is wearing brass knuckles and carrying a chain. I raise the knife slowly, taking long enough for him to remember who I am. "Consider it learned," I say.

He looks at the blade, then at me, then gets up and goes to the door. He leaves. I hear the door lock behind him. I am not surprised to find that I can't get out. It's all right. I didn't want to get out, anyway. I curl up around the knife and go back to sleep.

The next morning, there is no further talk about who belongs in what "place."

My team is somewhat subdued when they prep me for District One, but they do have something to settle my stomach, and Medusa gives me a little scalp massage when she does my hair. Lepidus, looking kind of green, tells me that he's going to give me more comfortable clothes today, no matter what Mr. Glass says. The comfortable clothes turn out to have a place where I can hide the knife.

There was never a chance that District One wouldn't be a disaster. I probably knew it before I saw the giant picture of Filigree Simms flying over the square, but seeing it really brings it home. This isn't District Two, with a pragmatic approach to winning. District One really believes the crazy girl should be here instead of me. I manage to make it through the script I wrote for myself (I let Glass hand me one, but I ignore it), then go to prep. The most recent victor from One, Wealthy Gibson, visits me while Lepidus is getting me ready and gives me the bread recipe. She doesn't have much to say, except that most of the district's eight victors had other pressing engagements today. "Don't take it personally," she adds. "Filigree was not well loved among us. But neither is your escort. He made a pest of himself last year."

"I believe that."

"Yeah… yeah, I'll bet you do." She leaves, and doesn't make an appearance at the banquet.

The only victor present is Majesty Gallivray, from the Sixteenth Games. She is happy because her youngest child has just aged out of the Reaping and is still alive, though he has to leave her house in the Village and go back to Furriers' Row. "I do not miss the smell of tanning hides," she says emphatically. That's about the only thing I remember. They have a green, anise-flavored local drink, and it's stronger than anything else I've tried. There's not much nonsense about dancing, and I apparently get somewhat taken in by a groupie, because the next morning, there's a picture on television of me throwing up on the back of a girl's neck. Her face is in my lap. I very honestly remember nothing at all about this.

Lepidus, thankfully, must have secured my knife at some point, as I woke up with it in my hand, even though I was in my pajamas.

The stop here was overnight, as they are cleaning up the train for our grand entrance into the Capitol. I can see attendants outside the windows, scrubbing it.

Glass is sitting at the far end of the dining car, watching the news and smirking unpleasantly. I consider asking who the girl was, but decide not to. He hands me the Capitol schedule without speaking to me.

I am not prepared for our first stop, because the schedule doesn't tell me about it. The car takes us through the cheering (and occasionally jeering) crowd at the train station, and straight to the Training Center, to the quarters where I once had to listen to Beech Berryhill trying to figure out the Capitol shower, where Gilla Callan spent her last full day on earth playing at being a fashion model, where I sat across from Maysilee Donner, joking about how the arena might be a formal ballroom this year. I can see her in the dark, with the flickering shadows from the television playing across her face.

I go straight to the bar and pour myself a drink.

"What a shock," Glass says dryly. "Well, not to worry - Caesar's handled drunk interviews before. Have at it. I have business to attend to." He claps his hand, and an Avox appears. "Keep the bar stocked," he says. "Our victor has earned his party, I'm sure."

With that, he leaves me alone, and locks the door behind him.

I put the bottle down and cap it. I'm not joining Saffron's quit-drinking club, but I'm sure as hell not going to get drunk just because Ausonius Glass wants me to.

I go to the window. There are people gathered outside with cameras, but there's nothing they can take a picture of. The glass is one way here. Many of them are laughing and some pantomime throwing up on each other. I don't feel like watching them, and I want to steer clear of the bar for a little while, so I turn on the television. It's not much better. The thing I have no memory of doing is all over. I am about to turn it off when Ausonius Glass appears on screen, side by side with a young reporter. They are both laughing.

"So, it's been quite a ride?" the reporter asks.

"Oh, believe me," Glass says, "the public has only seen the half of it with this one…"

The door opens. I don't turn around. I assume it's my preps.

"Quite a show," someone says.

I sit up straight, then turn very slowly, sure that I'm wrong about the voice. I'm not. President Snow is standing just inside the apartment, looking at me with great amusement.

"Really, you've outdone yourself," he says. "I was concerned at first. You were coming off as quite sympathetic with Miss Pepper holding your leash. Or whatever it was she was holding."

"Hey!"

"But now that my old friend Ausonius has set you free to be yourself, I can't see anyone taking you seriously. I congratulate you. You've neutralized yourself far more effectively than any of my agents could."

I turn back toward the television, where there's a mock commercial running for "District Twelve Deep Conditioner." "You know Gia wasn't… holding anything. There's no way you don't have that train bugged, and all the prep rooms."

"I would point out that there were several other venues, most of which I would not take the trouble to bug, but of course, you're quite right. Miss Pepper was decent to a fault, at least on non-political matters, and I am well aware that she wouldn't take advantage of your besotted state. Where is she?"

"No idea."

"We both know that's not true."

"We both know where she got off the train, too, which means you know as much as I do. She'd never tell me anything that would get me in trouble."

He sniffs and sits down across from me. "Please, Haymitch. You were watching her every move. She may not have told you anything, but you are more than bright enough to figure these things out on your own. I don't deceive myself about that, though I imagine the constant pickling is slowing even you down. Where is Pelagia Pepper?"

I don't answer.

"I understand that you are not fond of your new escort. Tell me where your old one is, and I will assign you someone perhaps more to your liking."

I think about Glass coming into my car. Then I think about my knife. "I can handle Glass," I say. "But if he ever touches me again, I'll kill him."

"Fair enough," Snow says amiably. "He knows he has no leave to do that, and I will personally enforce it."

"If I tell you something you want to hear?"

"No - that deal is already on the table. I will transfer him if you give me the information I'm seeking. But I will rein him in, both for you and your future tributes, if you agree not to propagandize for the seditionists I'm quite sure you've met."

"I have no idea where Gia is."

"You know I don't believe you."

"Believe what you want."

"Very well. And the other deal on the table?"

I watch television for a few minutes. There's a lurching, twisting dance, done by boys in terrible costumes. Glass is laughing with the reporter.

No one takes what I say seriously anyway, and I could probably do a lot more if I weren't running around spouting propaganda. "Deal," I say. "But you better mean it about him not touching my tributes."

"Oh, I assure you, they will be sacrosanct." Snow stands up. "Well, with that, I believe your prep team is calling for the elevator, to get you ready for Caesar. Don't break our deal, Mr. Abernathy. I _will_ be watching."


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine**  
I check the preps for bruises or any other marks before I let them start in with me, and I tell them to let me know if Glass touches them. I didn't think to add them to my deal with Snow, but then, I already told Glass what the deal was regarding the preps and stylists: He hurts them, I hurt him.

Igerna tells me that Lepidus needs rest - the last few days have been stressful - so the girls' stylist, Atilia, will be in to dress me.

"As long as she doesn't put me in high heels," I mutter.

"Well, she might try some platforms, to make you look a little taller…"

"I'll kick them off and go barefoot."

She laughs, and starts in on my nails. I really don't think I've done anything to them that requires this much attention, but I'm sort of getting used to it. I'm actually starting to like having lotion worked into my hands, and all of my hangnails carefully removed. I decide that it's probably safer _not_ to bring that up back in Twelve.

I wonder what they're making of the spectacle on television at home. They didn't say anything to me when I got back from the Capitol last time, with comedians spoofing my every move. But this is different. I can't write this off as one binge.

I shake my head. So what? I grew up with them calling me smelly and teasing me about my teeth and my hand-me-down clothes and my patchwork house. Hell, I even put up with them talking about Dad's drinking. Dad put up with it, too. He never cared what they had to say about it, and right up until he died, he was a decent guy, no matter how drunk he was. If they have a problem, it's theirs, not mine.

In some locked up corner of my mind, I can hear Gia telling me to quit, and quit _now_, before the bottle turns into one more hanging tree to climb. But I won't let it get that far. I promised.

Fabiola has finished my teeth and Medusa is working on my hair when the elevator opens and Caesar Flickerman arrives. He actually asks if he can come in, like it's my place to invite him. I tell him to make himself at home.

He rearranges some chairs so he can sit across from me without interrupting Medusa, then says, "Are you all right for the interview?"

"Am I drunk?"

"It's not an unreasonable question."

"I haven't had anything today."

He nods. "Yeah. You sound sober enough. Usually, I talk to a new victor's mentor before the interview, to find out what to ask about, but I'm afraid Albinus wasn't a great source of information, other than that you're apparently a pain in the various private regions of his body, and you can't take orders."

"If he'd given me orders that weren't stupid, maybe I'd've listened."

Caesar laughs. "He also said you were the smartest… well, he used an expletive that I won't use on the show… that he ever met."

I don't know what I'm supposed to say to that, so I don't say anything. "So you want to know what to ask me?"

"What would you like to talk about? Keeping in mind that some things, of course, will never see airtime."

I nod. "I told Snow I wouldn't propagandize for the seditionists."

Caesar looks surprised. "You did?"

"He said he'd make Glass keep his hands off my tributes."

Caesar looks down. "Haymitch… you may want to be careful about deals with Coriolanus. He'll keep his word, but his methods may not be entirely to your liking."

I can't think of much that it would bother me to have done to Glass, so I just shrug.

Caesar sits back as Medusa finishes up and lets me move around a little. She asks if I need anything, and I tell her I don't. Caesar waits for her to go. "I have been arguing with Coriolanus for years to have Glass dismissed. I dislike his approach. I have a great deal of influence on the hiring of escorts and other entourage members, but so far, it's been a no-go with Glass. He's apparently a useful threat to hang over people."

"Oh."

"I'll keep trying. You were doing beautifully with Miss Pepper as an escort." He doesn't wait for me to answer this. "I'm interested in your motives for dealing with the president - you're already worried about your tributes?"

"District Twelve's small. I'm going to know them all. I don't know how I'm going to talk to their parents. How do people do that?"

"You'll want to talk to Chaff and Seeder about that. I wish I could say it wasn't something you'll need to learn."

I can't see any productive place for this conversation to go, so I change the subject. "You said you have influence on entourage members? Like… my preps?"

"Yes. I'm the producer of the official Games programming. In theory, they answer to me."

"Could you make sure Glass doesn't fire mine just because he can't get at me?"

He looks a little stunned. "Your preps? You're going to…" He grins. It's not his stage grin, which would be kind of disturbing, but an actual one. "Haymitch, you and I are _definitely_ going to be friends."

"Then you'll do it?"

"On one condition. You'll be in the Capitol for two days, including the big party at the president's place tonight. Tomorrow, you get a little rest before we take you back. Your train leaves in the evening. If you can stay sober the whole time, I'll use my influence to keep your team safe."

I frown. "You'd do it anyway, wouldn't you?"

"Yes. But I want you to take it seriously. Will you stay sober for the next forty-eight hours? _Can_ you?"

"Sure," I say. "I can do that."

"Good. I thought tomorrow, we might spend a little more serious time at the library, if you'd like to."

I'd guess Glass would hate it - the "smart stuff" that doesn't sell - but the thought of being in that building, surrounded by all of those books, and maybe having time to look at them this time… that would be about the best thing that's happened on this trip. "Yeah," I say. "That would be good."

"Good. Now, what shall we talk about for the benefit of all of Panem…?"

The interview turns out to be the least unpleasant public appearance that's occurred so far. Caesar tosses me softballs about the house, remembers Mom and Lacklen and Digger with me, and asks which bread recipes I can't wait for Danny to try. He ignores the girl whose head was in my lap, though he does make a quick joke about how I've clearly been making lots of good friends. He uses this to segue into me talking about a lot of nice people I've met, including little Jack in District Seven, the kids in the snow in District Eight, a few victors, and Calico in Eleven, all of whom seem to be from some very distant era that I once read about.

"Are you looking forward to going home?"

I shrug. "Well, I hope they don't turn me out for embarrassing them."

Caesar laughs, and brings up a live feed from Twelve. Someone has managed to scare up a handful of people to stand outside the Victors' Village gate. They razz me a little bit and then tell me that I'll just have to come back and spend a bunch of money in town to make up for my bad behavior. I allow that I just might do that. No one I'd think of as one of my friends is there - the Donners, the Mellarks, old Sae, Merle Undersee… none of them. They did manage to find a woman named Elsie Gownken, who took over the mantle of town drunk after Dad died. The mine supervisor who liked Mom is there. Still, they seem happy enough. I look at Caesar to try and judge whether or not it's staged. He gives me that normal grin again.

If it turns out that my friends aren't there for any reason other than work or school getting in the way, I can think of a head Peacekeeper who's going to get a little bloodied for it. But I decide not to just assume malfeasance when it's just as possible that they're all tired of being seen as my friends, or that they realized they were being watched too closely to get anything done as long as they were the media's go-to group.

Glass doesn't turn up at the banquet, and I keep my promise to Caesar, mostly by spending a lot of the evening with Plutarch Heavensbee, who keeps us on water and tea. There are fountains of booze, and the smell is driving me crazy, but I see my preps and stylists in the crowd, and steel myself. It's only two days. I dance with a few people I've seen on television, including the star of _Seagull Point_ (who is, in point of fact, much prettier than her costumes make her out to be - in a simple dress with a plain blue wig and clean make-up, she's actually pretty stunning). Her name is Emiliana, and she actually gets a kick out of my theories about the show, though she won't confirm or deny anything.

"Having a good time?" President Snow asks as we finish a song.

"A lovely time," Emiliana says.

"And the matter we discussed earlier?"

She looks at me and smiles awkwardly. "I, um… I think I'm pretty busy after the party, actually. But you can have my donation anyway, just for a lovely party."

Snow smiles tightly and drifts away.

Emiliana bites her lip. "Don't take it personally," she says. "I just… I think dancing is enough."

"I didn't know anything else was on the table."

"Well, I… last year… Brutus… we had a… thing."

"Oh. But he wasn't as embarrassing as I am."

"Actually, it's because I didn't like him as much. He was a toy. You're… I like you all right."

She ducks away and goes to dance with one of her co-stars. I think about Brutus insisting that it was all an urban legend. I wonder if he's that stupid, or if he's just a willing participant. I kind of suspect the latter.

No one else seems to take a particularly strong interest in me, other than autograph seekers. I guess throwing up on a girl's head didn't do wonders for my sex appeal. Maybe I should have done it sooner.

I spend a little time signing autographs for little kids, which is mostly a non-threatening activity. Some of the parents watch me warily. Most don't care. And frankly, there are too many kids around for the number of adults I see in the vicinity. I can't imagine Mom letting me in a place like this alone, but apparently, in the Capitol, it's not a terribly big deal.

Why would it be? They're entertained by watching kids die. I can't imagine a mother with Mom's sense of protectiveness being entertained by the Games, anyway.

Some of the kids might even be working the banquet somehow. One little girl is called away and scolded for dereliction before she gets to me, and laden down with trays of hors d'oeuvres to distribute. She looks so heartbroken that I grab a napkin and sign it for her - to "the girl carrying everything," since I don't know her name - even though I have to chase her down to give it to her. The smile is worth the trouble.

I go back to Plutarch after that, and we spend the rest of the night harmlessly enough, playing a crazy computer game at which I beat him soundly several times.

"Where's Glass, anyway?" I ask him as we leave the party.

"He got mugged."

"What?"

"I was at the Gamemakers' lounge when the call came. Something about getting jumped in the fashion district. It happens. He had to go to the hospital."

I think about what Caesar said about Snow's methods. I'm still not all that upset.

Plutarch goes to the library with Caesar and me the next day, and it proves to be the only unmitigated good day I've had in months. Caesar has found a stock of history books about the area that became District Twelve. We look up information on Scotland, and a group called the Scots-Irish, who apparently settled most of the region, leaving a wake of Scottish names on a group that Caesar said has undoubtedly mixed a lot since, given that it was a highly trafficked area for hundreds of years before the Catastrophes.

Still, I find myself fonder of the books on Scotland than I was before, if only because Caesar took such trouble to find them and have them brought out for me. I find a pattern of plaid in blues and greens and reds that's supposed to be especially for Abernathys. Plutarch says the tartans were made up really late in the game and I shouldn't take it seriously, but I like it. I decide to have a few ties or vests made of it. Plutarch rolls his eyes.

They present me with a collection of ten antique books as a gift. Plutarch's three are all historical books. He opens one of them (a dry tome on the history of the English language, written in an English that I barely recognize) and inside the flap is a truly ancient pamphlet on yellowing paper. The title is "Common Sense Addressed to the Inhabitants of America." He winks and passes it to me. Caesar gives me four novels, and three old mythology books. All of these are placed in an ornate chest. I am looking forward to getting home and reading them, though I suspect that Plutarch's pamphlet will have to be hidden somewhere as soon as I'm done with it.

Late in the afternoon, we go back to the train. I can see through the windows that Glass is back - he's sitting in the dining car - but I don't let it spoil things.

Caesar looks at his watch. "You did it, Haymitch. You made it all the way through. Two days."

"Told you I could."

"Now, do two more."

"You're changing the deal?"

"No. Deal's done. I'll take care of your team. I'm just worried about you. Can you do two more days?"

"If I wanted to, I could."

He sighs. "You might need help, Haymitch. Don't hesitate to ask for it."

Plutarch and I board the train. Glass doesn't stand up when we go into the dining car. Both of his forearms are in heavy casts, and every one of his fingers is splinted. He looks at me coldly.

I don't flinch, and I don't say anything. I stare back at him until he sniffs disdainfully and goes back to something he's watching on a small screen in front of him. An attendant offers him a drink and holds it while he sips through a straw.

I play chess with Plutarch for most of the night, mainly because I'm jumpy and wish I could have a drink to help me get to sleep, but I'm not going to convince Caesar that I can handle things if I can't even make it two more days. I keep checking my watch for how many hours are left.

On television, they're replaying Districts Two and One, since my Capitol appearance was apparently not entertaining enough for people. I'm shown briefly signing autographs, and a few insinuations are made about why I was spending so much time with Plutarch, but they can't seem to spin it.

I guess it's a little too late to rehabilitate my reputation.

For some reason, late at night, when Plutarch is fighting to stay awake, I actually start crying, thinking about what Mom would say. Plutarch awkwardly pats my back and tells me everything's fine. He gets my knife for me, and I hold onto it and finally fall asleep. I dream I'm in the arena again, but I'm drunk out of my skull and every time I swing my knife, it hits someone I don't mean to hit. Mom. Lacklen. Digger. Maysilee. Gia. Weirdly, Glass. I'm covered in their blood, and dizzy from the smell. I force myself to wake up. One more night of this, and then I will drink something before bed, so if I do dream things like that - and I have a feeling that this is not a new dream - I won't remember it in the morning.

We get into District Twelve at noon. I am nervous. I'm not sure why - they won't do anything they haven't done for years. But as I'm unloaded and pulled around for the big arrival scene, I suddenly find myself wanting to get back on the train, go to the bar car, and curl up in a corner with a bottle of the good stuff. I don't, of course. I don't _need_ to. It's just a weird image that comes into my head. I'm tired. I guess that's it. I didn't sleep enough.

Of course, work is canceled for the day (probably without pay), and the square is crowded. There's polite applause (any disapproval will wait for the cameras to leave, I guess), and I give a speech that sounds tired and bored even to my ears. The Capitol has gone all-out on the end of the tour. There's a heated pavilion set up in the square, with a high-quality stage and sound system set up. There are singers and bands that everyone knows, playing songs that have been stuck in everyone's heads for weeks. They found a couple of respectable old comedians who haven't been making their living off of me lately, and people laugh at their antics. Beckett gets on stage and preens about how well District Twelve has been "cleaned up" in her tenure.

It all seems like the rest of the tour, really. There's something strange, but I can't put my finger on it. But as the afternoon wears on, a funny sense seems to come over everything. Sounds are just a little bit louder than they should be, and they have a strange echo to them. I decide to just ride it out. It's going to be strange. Of course it is.

Danny is produced from somewhere, and I present him with his recipes (and the seaweed from Four) in front of the cameras. When they finally back off to report a little bit on the rustic charm of District Twelve, we sit down at one of the picnic tables.

"Looked from here like you had quite a trip," he says, grinning.

"They took Gia away."

His face softens a little. "I know. I'm sorry. Is she… um, alive?"

I nod. "She disappeared off the train." I have no idea how much of the pavilion is bugged, so I assume it all is. "I think they'd have made sure to tell me if they'd killed her." I spill some sugar on the table and quickly make the symbol for "escape," so Danny knows I'm not lying to him out of spite.

He nods, then goes back to the original subject, which is probably safer. "They've sure been making it look like you've been meeting some friendly people.

"Maybe one or two," I admit.

"What's it like, just being out of here?"

"It's very big out there," I say. "You should see where everything gets flat. You can see _forever_, I swear…"

I start telling him about the places I've seen, and it all seems less dangerous and more interesting in the re-telling. A part of me is actually hungry to see some places again, or to see more new places. I try not to let on, since Danny's never going to get a chance to go - unless he's reaped, and wins, I guess, and I'm not wishing that for him. I think about the open car in the back of the train. The land flying past us almost soundlessly. The moonlight on River Bay, and the green of Gia's eyes.

I make myself come back. "So, what's been going on here? Is it as… exciting… as it was when I left?"

Danny doesn't pretend not to know that I'm asking what the Peacekeepers have been up to. He sighs. "Well, you know - it's the same. A few accidents. Mr. Keyton had to put the… accident victims… inside to protect them from the elements. Ruthie's there helping out now. And Everdeen's one of them. He'd have been here. We did some work on your house together."

"What kind of work?"

"Well, I meant to brick up those windows, but I guess Gia already took care of that. So we put in bookshelves." He smooths out the sugar on the table and puts in the symbol for "hidden."

"I'm surprised you and Everdeen are talking."

He shrugs and looks down. I don't know a lot about what happened among Danny, his old girlfriend Ruth, and Glen Everdeen, a Seam boy who appeared out of nowhere and was suddenly standing between them. I know that he came to my place and got very drunk with me, and the last I knew, he felt like his entire life had been ruined, which would not lead me to think they'd be building bookshelves together. This all seems like a movie I saw a long time ago. Danny doesn't look like he wants to discuss the matter. He smooths out the sugar again and starts drawing a complicated looking vine with curly leaves. "What the hell?" he says. "So I'm single. Maybe you can give me a few pointers on meeting friendly people."

"Since when have you needed pointers?"

"You've clearly been doing better than me lately."

"Well, maybe Lepidus can lend you a few killer outfits."

He laughs. I follow suit, though it doesn't feel real, and we joke about my bizarre reputation. District Twelve seems like as much a stop on the tour as any of the others. I find myself trying to remember which Games he won, then I remember that he was my friend before the Games. The idea that something existed before the Games also seems unreal.

We have moved on to a conversation about an even more unreal topic - school - when I realize that I'm barely keeping track of it - that I am, in point of fact, deeply terrified. I don't know where I am. Nothing seems familiar. It's not that I don't know what it's supposed to be, but I feel like someone has painted images of District Twelve over some anonymous boxes, and hired a pretty decent lookalike to play my friend Danny. The script is off, though. I'm saying the wrong lines. I know that this is crazy, but I can't shake it.

I want a drink _now_.

"Haymitch?" Danny says, his face suddenly losing its good humor and going sharp with concern. "Haymitch, man, what's wrong?"

I realize that I'm just staring at him, blinking. "I -"

"Haymitch!"

"Don't yell. They'll come with cameras if you yell."

"Okay, no yelling. What is it?"

The words that come out of my mouth are completely insane, but I can't stop them. "Where's my mom, Danny? Where's Digger? If I'm in District Twelve, where's my girl? She's mad, isn't she…?"

"I think you need to rest, Haymitch. You know…" His voice trails off. "You do _know_…"

"I know. But, how is this home?"

Danny looks around quickly, then grabs a cup of cold coffee from the next table over. He throws it on me. "Whoa!" he says loudly, jovially. "Didn't mean to do that! Better get you to your preps before half of Panem sees that!"

He takes me by the elbow and pulls me up. He's real enough, then. He leads me through the crowd to the mayor's house, to the room where I'm supposed to go to prep in two hours.

Glass appears at the doorway, his casted arms snug in a double sling. "What are you doing inside?" he asks.

"He needs rest," Danny says and dumps me down on the bed.

"And who are you?" I stare at him in astonishment. Danny has been on television a lot - including just a few minutes ago with the recipes - but Glass absolutely doesn't recognize him. He's a non-entity.

"I'm no one," Danny tells him. "I think his stylist might need to get him a new shirt, though. I spilled some coffee."

"You clumsy brat," Glass says. I'm glad his hands are hurt, because I didn't think to include my friends at home in my deal. "Very well. I'll get Lepidus."

He goes.

Danny grabs a blanket from the end of the bed and throws it over my shoulders.

I lean forward with my head in my hands. "Am I home?" I ask him.

"Yeah, Haymitch," he says, rubbing my shoulders vigorously. "Yeah, you're home."


	10. Chapter 10

**Part Two: Arena**

**Chapter Ten**  
Lepidus returns, Fabiola in tow. She pours a glass of water, into which she puts some fizzing powder.

"What's that?" Danny asks.

"He's gone a few days without drinking," Fabiola explains. "This regulates the chemicals in his brain while he re-adjusts."

"I went longer without drinking while Gia was in charge," I mutter.

"She had us add it to every meal."

"Without telling me?"

Fabiola nods. "She was worried. You'd been drinking too much. And we have ways of handling it."

"Why wouldn't she tell me?"

"She… well… She didn't think you'd take it well. Or maybe you'd take it _too_ well." She bites her lip. "Some people, when they drink, it turns off little nerves in their brains. Or something like that; I'm a medic, not a doctor. It doesn't happen to everyone, and it's because of genetics. Gia was afraid you'd take it as an excuse and say that meant you couldn't stop. We have ways to treat it. You were almost through the whole course when she left. Glass told us to stop. He said Gia was… overdramatizing. That a sixteen year old boy who likes to party isn't _sick_. If you don't do the whole course, it doesn't take." She looks down. "I'm sorry. But this will help now."

"Can you leave some with him?" Danny asks. He sounds about six miles away.

"No," Fabiola says. "It's… it's something you can only get in the Capitol." She pushes the glass against my mouth, and I drink despite myself. I can't taste a thing, but my head starts to clear.

"You were doping me and not telling me?" I ask. "_Gia_ was?"

"She was trying to help."

"She had no right. She could have told me."

"Haymitch, you needed medicine," Danny says.

"What I need at the moment is a drink," I say. I lie down on the bed and turn away from all of them.

No one brings me a drink. Whatever medicine Fabiola gave me works through the banquet, which is attended by not one soul I actually care to see. Even the Donners, who have a pretty big stake in the Games, are not invited, let alone the Mellarks (they aren't even staffing the pastry table) or Sae.

I have to sit with Lucretia Beckett through the whole evening. She tells me about how she stopped a lot of vandalism during the tour, since we wouldn't want such things on television. I'm not to worry. She's kept files on everyone involved, and they'll "get theirs."

I think about the reaping balls, about Glass sneering as he pulls out names. Will they even bother with the regular slips if Beckett is keeping such good track of troublemakers? There's a huge fuss made over keeping the boxes of cards uncorrupted, but who knows what's in them when they first arrive? Maybe I should talk to Maysilee's uncle. He handles the cards more than anyone else in town.

I don't end up going to see him, or anyone else.

After the banquet, I'm driven back to Victors' Village with great aplomb. The cameras and everyone from the Capitol is on a train as quickly as they can possibly board it. It's long past the Victors' Village curfew, and I am left alone in the ghost town.

I pour myself a drink.

Stare at it. The medicine is still working, and my body is not screaming out for it. It does control that part.

Controls _me_.

I bring the glass to my lips and drink it down in one gulp. They have no business controlling me, drugging me. When Gia Pepper starts having nightmares about the arena, maybe she can have a say in what I drink.

I pour another.

A kind of haze drops over my life for the next few weeks. I'm not completely drunk most of the time, but on the other hand, I'm never completely sober, either. I'm aware of things going on around me. I find the hidden book shelves in my bedroom, and several little cubbies under the floor. Plutarch's pamphlet goes into one of these.

Danny comes over and bakes District Four bread before the seaweed goes bad. We both like it. We both wash it down with white liquor, and sit around my living room watching television. There's some wrap-up coverage on the tour, most of it poking fun at my wild ways. They catch Gia in District Ten, about the time it became apparent that I wasn't fluent in Ancient Greek, giggling nervously (an expression I just can't really associate with her, even when I see it) and saying that I hadn't found a "lifelong passion" just yet. This segues into my various temporary passions, starting with kissing Gia in District Six. I see myself on the dance floor in Four, my tongue halfway down the girl's throat. District Two is a free-for-all, with boys and girls both all over me. District One is all about the girl whose head I puked on. She's interviewed. She seems nice, and says I was very nice to her, even after "the incident," which I'm grateful for. She seems to have washed her hair since then. Her name turns out to be Sable, which, for District One, is kind of sane.

Danny pretends to be very impressed by these "conquests," clapping sarcastically at each one. We drink a little more. By the time I send him home (with most of the loaf of bread to share with his family), he's pretty smashed, and after that, visits are limited to me visiting the bakery while his mother gives me exasperated looks. I decide that it's better to even cut back on this. Aside from needing Danny to send out messages - and therefore needing the government to not watch him very carefully - I need his name to not come out of the reaping balls. Until he's nineteen, I tell him that it's better for him to do his drinking with someone else, anyway.

I do errands in town. I pick up money and pay Merle for the gardening. I visit the Donners, only to find Kay too furious at me to talk. Apparently, I've ruined the best platform "we've" had for years to get out the message. I wonder what she'd say if I told her that I've promised the president that I won't be doing any messaging anyway. I decide not to find out. Things have been awkward enough with Kay. At least she doesn't look so much like Maysilee anymore. Her hair is cut and dyed brown with a tea wash. I don't feel like it's Maysilee I'm letting down.

The stocks, which had apparently been put away for the big conclusion of my tour, have been put back, and are almost always full. The ground under the whipping post gets bloody again. Glen Everdeen is beaten nearly senseless by Peacekeepers when he tries to keep them from hitting Ginger McCullough, a fourteen-year-old who was already lamed by a gunshot. Ginger's father was fired at the mines, and she was apparently caught stealing food. Technically, this is a death penalty offense, but, Beckett assures us, Panem is merciful, and will allow the first offense to slide with only a whipping, which everyone is supposed to watch. Glen doesn't succeed in stopping it. I'm pretty sure Beckett wants him hanged for interfering, but she settles for the beating instead.

I'm sure this will go into her files. I'm not sure if Glen will be nineteen yet at reaping. He's two years ahead in school, but birthdays can be a little vague.

I spend a day in my house measuring myself and ordering clothes from the Capitol. I feel like this would be more amusing with Digger to run a commentary and Mom to tut about it, and when I try to imagine what they'd have to say, I feel worse and worse. And I start drinking. I wish I had pictures of them. I could talk to pictures. But I don't, and talking to nothing feels too much like talking to ghosts.

For a while, the booze makes me feel more like crying, but once I'm deep enough under, it makes everything seem far away and unimportant. I go back to ordering clothes. When they come in a week later on the train, I barely remember what I'm getting, so it's a little surprise. I'm glad I measured myself sober. They all fit. Most of them are even pretty decent, though I did accidentally order a shirt covered with gold sequins. I thought it was just yellow when I was shopping.

I'm putting it away when I notice that one cuff is stiffer than the other. I examine it. There's a part of the seam that looks like it's been worked over. I cut it open, and pull out a piece of paper. It's not in code. I realize I never passed the code to anyone.

_Can't write much in small space. Got count from mutual friend. Items lost in out-districts are safe and in good hands. _

Beneath this is the symbol Chaff picked for himself - a hand. Beside it is a needle. I decide it's probably Woof. So Chaff sent this to Woof, who secreted it away in a clothing order. I'll have to check anything I send for. The rebel census is safe. Gia's in good hands. Great. I hope whoever's hands they are is checking whether or not he's being drugged.

I wonder if there's a way to get around Danny by shipping messages with the coal, and reluctantly decide there isn't. Coal doesn't go to individual recipients. I don't have anything to say, anyway. I haven't exactly been collecting intelligence.

I can't think of anything I have to say to anyone, actually. I don't bother hanging most of the new clothes up. I just leave them in a pile on the bed and sleep on top of them.

I lose track of the days for a while. I sleep with my knife. I get up and wander the house. Drink. Watch television. They've finally moved on from the excitement of their latest drunk victor and gone to standard Capitol fare. I don't care much what's on. I watch fashion shows and interview shows and soap operas and comedies. Once, I wake up early in the morning on a weekend and watch a show about a cartoon wolf named Howler. Howler solves mysteries and takes breaks to teach little children how to stay safe. The most important tip seems to be telling Peacekeepers if they ever hear someone say something dangerous. (In the mystery in question, Howler must depend on a local child who heard a scary man in an alley say that he was doing something Peacekeepers shouldn't know about.) After it, there's another cartoon, this one about a little Capitol girl who can fly. Her name is Aquila. People are always trying to kidnap her. There's something strange about it, but I don't put my finger on it until I'm fumbling around with lunch: She has no parents. Anywhere. It's not even talked about, and no one says she should tell whoever looks after her. She's meant to go straight to the Peacekeepers, every time.

I think about the kids at the Capitol banquet. Something tries to come together in my head, but I grab a drink before it can. I have enough to do without worrying about what a bunch of rich Capitol kids are being told in cartoons. They're the ones we're supposed to be overthrowing.

Except that, having visited the districts and the Capitol, on the whole, I didn't find regular Capitol people to be any worse than regular district people. I drink some more.

When I finally pass out, I dream of the arena, the first time I've really dreamed about it - at least that I remember on waking - since I got home. I am under the blanket with Maysilee. She's wearing the stupid parade costume.

"Tell me a story," she says.

"What one? Not the one with the pigs. Snow killed my mother with that one."

"I know," she says. "I'm sorry. Tell me whatever story is in your head."

"I don't have any stories in my head. Just this one. The one where they killed you."

"That's a lie, Haymitch Abernathy. What are you trying to tell yourself?"

It starts raining, and the rain is white liquor. The clearing starts to fill up, and the blanket turns into a raft. I'm on it now with Gia. It's patched up with the powder I saw Fabiola put in my water. "Other places do seem so cramped up and smothery, but a raft don't," she says. "You feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft."

"You drugged me."

"It's about escaping," she says, not acknowledging my accusation. She looks at me and smiles, and her eyes are shining against the overcast sky, the way bright things do when everything around them is gray. "Why can't we escape?"

"I'm trying to."

She just laughs at this, like it's the funniest joke she ever heard, then lies down on the raft and drags her hand along in the white liquor river below us. "Why didn't the little flying girl tell her parents?"

"Who cares?"

She sits up, looking cross, and suddenly, she's Mom, and we're in her filthy little room in our old house. I can smell Dad's liquor in the blankets, even though I know he's been gone for years. "You know better than to throw things away," she says. "Haymitch, whatever comes into your mind comes into it for a reason. Don't throw it away. You're trying to tell yourself something you can use. Pay attention. Use whatever your mind gives you."

"It's not giving me anything I can use!"

"Well, that all depends on what you're trying to do, doesn't it?" Digger asks me, and we are in the woods, in the ruined world by the lake where we were together. "What are you telling yourself?"

The problem is that I'm not telling myself anything useful. So Capitol kids are being fed lies like the rest of us. So what? I don't care - I can't take down the Capitol if I'm wasting my time worrying about the cartoons their kids watch.

The burned out world fades away, and I'm in the president's banquet hall. The little kids are pressing around me, asking for autographs. The little girl with the trays is called away, and I chase her down to give her an autograph. She smiles at me and I feel _good_ for a minute, like maybe I'm Rhona Abernathy's good boy again, and then I'm with Maysilee again, under the blanket.

"Tell me a story," she says. "I'll start. Once upon a time, on the edge of the forest, there lived a boy."

I shake my head. "I don't know where he is."

"The boy was poor, but very smart."

"Well, now he's rich and dumb."

Maysilee frowns, then turns her nose up. "Fine. Have it your way. But you better find that boy, Haymitch. There's wolves out there, and they're going to eat him alive."

The dream breaks up after that, and I'm wandering around the arena. Filigree is chasing me, but I'm aware that she's a wolf. Then I'm in a labyrinth, and she's the Minotaur, and I'm holding…

I wake up in the middle of the night, dropping my knife, and put my hand on my wrist. It isn't there. I didn't even have it with me on the tour.

I run to my study, sure that it will be gone, but when I unlock the top drawer of my desk, it's still there: My district token. The string tie from Digger's dress, knotted into a bracelet. It was my thread, to get through the labyrinth, like Theseus in the story we told each other on the morning of the reaping. Gia wound through a thread of bright red that came from the dress Digger was buried in. It glows against the grayish blue.

I put it on. "The thread," I whisper. "Ariadne's thread."

Suddenly, all of them are close, closer than they were in my dream. I see Digger kneeling by the fire in the Justice Building, holding out a piece of bread to toast. I see Mom in her chair as we carry her, marveling over the excesses of the Capitol. I see Lacklen building his endless traps, and Maysilee with her mockingjay pin.

I don't cry, but it's a close thing.

_What are you trying to tell yourself?_ my father asks me in my mind. _What do you need?_

I don't know. At least not everything. But I decide there is one thing I need, and maybe the rest can come from there.

I didn't participate in cleaning up the wreckage of my home. No one told me, but I have gathered from the osmosis of the small town rumor chain that there was a lot of blood and gore where it collapsed and crushed my family and a Capitol camera crew. I'm glad I didn't go. But someone did. Danny, of course, and the miners who knew Mom. A few other people who always help out. There wasn't much to salvage, but what they found, they wrapped up in an old drop cloth and brought here. The bundle is in the basement, according to Kay Donner. I haven't gone through it. I actually haven't been in the basement.

It takes me a few tries to find the door. The basement is surprisingly unfinished out here. There's just a big furnace in the middle and some storage rooms along the side. There's a workshop area with tools that I might look at later, but it's not what I'm after now.

I find the bundle in a large empty room, lined with empty shelves. The drop cloth, spattered with gray paint and coal dust, is about knee high and a few feet wide. It's tied up with rope, which I cut with Saffron Abatty's arena knife.

The cloth falls away.

On top of everything is my parents' old quilt, pieced together from bits of everyone's outgrown or worn out clothes. I pick it up and smell it. It still smells like her sickness, but I don't care. I remember her working on it, sitting by the fire with her needle and thread. She was still healthy then, but Daddy was already sick. He had spent the day cutting things up, because he was so bored at not being able to work, decorating the squares that she'd use, writing with one of my school pens. I never really read them. Most are faded, but I can see that they're the definitions he loved so much. I can see "beloved" and "beauty" and "dear." I remember him talking about "dear," in that way he had when he'd just started drinking for the day, when he was relaxed, but not drunk.

_It started out in Old English meaning hard or grievous, you know,_ he said. _Then it became expensive, and then it was beloved._ He pinched my nose. _So take your pick when I call you 'Dear boy.'_

I trace that square of the quilt, running my fingers along Mom's little stitches. They slept together under this quilt until he died, and when she was sick, I often saw her holding onto it like a drowning woman grasping a rope.

I put it over my shoulders and look further.

They dug up Lacklen's winter coat, and the loops of rope I remember him hanging from when he wanted to see if he could escape a trap. There's the battered old soup pot that we cooked everything in. Digger's shirt, which was still in my bedroom when I went to the Capitol. Mom's hairbrush, still wound through with her curly black hair. I am afraid for a minute that the thing I'm looking for isn't here, but I finally find it under Mom's best dress (a threadbare blue one with handmade wooden buttons).

The box is still wrapped in plastic to protect it from the elements. The plastic was valuable, but nowhere near as valuable as what was in it. Two storybooks - one for Lacklen and one for me - bought on an installment plan from Herk Donner. The story of Theseus is in my book. I open it quickly and look at it, at a beautiful drawing of the princess holding out her saving thread. And beneath them, looking older than time, is Dad's dictionary. I pull it out carefully. The pages are fragile. It's been passed down longer than we can remember. The cover might have once been blue, but it's worn thin now, the patina rubbed off against the cardboard. There's an inscription: "To Angus, with love from Daddy." My father thought Angus might have been his great-grandfather, but it might have been even further back. He sometimes made up stories about Angus. Under this, I watched Daddy write, his hand shaking in the late part of his illness, "To Haymitch, love Daddy (and Angus, of course)."

I spend the hours until dawn looking up words. Some are words that were in the dictionary to begin with - tribute, quell, sacrifice - and some are on handwritten sheets that people have tucked in. Someone felt the need to add "red up," which seems to have meant "clean up" at some point. Daddy wrote our names. Lacklen used to be spelled Lachlan, which came from Lochlann, or land of the lakes, which was what people from Scotland called Norway. My name came from "Hamish," which came from "James," which somehow came from the name Yaakov. Daddy didn't understand how that had come to be, and wrote a big question mark on the path between James and Yaakov. It means "supplanter." Mom's means "rough island." Daddy's name was a regular District Twelve name - Basil, after the herb.

I must drink about three hundred words, letting them wash over me, absorbing them completely, before the sun comes up, and they're swimming in my head like white liquor when I carefully bring the books upstairs. I put them in the lower desk drawer. The quilt is still over my shoulders, and I leave it there while I make myself breakfast.

There is a strange hush over the world, and things seem to be very clear. I think of Lacklen getting his glasses from Caesar. I think this must be something like that. Everything was fuzzy for so long that it seemed normal. Now, I can see. I don't know how long it will last, and I don't want to risk it by drinking right now, even though my brain is already at me to grab a bottle and sink back. I am Haymitch Abernathy. My parents and my brother and my girl - who may have been my wife - are dead. My friend Maysilee is dead. I am alive (from the old English, on life, see _lif_, from the old Norse, body, life… it's one of those words that's its own definition). My district is under the control of the Capitol. So are all of the other districts, and frankly, a lot of perfectly decent people in the Capitol. My friends are in the line of fire, and I will have to take two of them to the Capitol to die in only four more months, if the calendar is right.

I remember sitting on the hill at the end of the arena, promising myself that I would take it all down. I guess it's more complicated than that, but it's simpler, too. It's the machinery of the Games that I need to take down. Start with something doable. I can't stop the Games - not now, not without something to hang it on - but I can jam up the way they're used.

I finish breakfast, carefully fold up Mom and Daddy's quilt and put it on the top of my couch, then get dressed and head into town.

I nod to a few miners walking to work, and they nod back politely enough. I stop at the bakery and say hello to the Mellarks. I pass Kay Donner, who's been in the pillory all night, and is quietly crying. Merle Undersee is sitting in front of her, talking to her quietly.

I reach the Peacekeepers' headquarters just before seven. At this hour, only one guard is on duty, the one named Cray. I shove him into a wall and slam his head against it to knock him out, pretty much before he recognizes that anyone is in the room.

There are computers and file cabinets at the back. The computers are already signed in. It looks like Cray has been using his night shift to watch videos of Capitol women having fairly acrobatic sex. On a second screen, I see lists of names. These are the digital files, then. I have no idea if they're backed up in another place, but this is the best I can do. I open up the computer and pour a bottle of white liquor over its innards. It fizzles and sparks, and finally sends up a lick of flame from the curls of dust gathered around the electronics.

I take a file folder from the drawers behind me, roll it up, and light it.

It doesn't take long for the whole office to go up.

I wait outside for them to come and collect me.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter Eleven**  
The Peacekeepers and the new Emergency Response Team show up at the same time. I see the ERT rush into the office with fire extinguishers (Danny's occasional girlfriend, Mir, is among them, and she gives me a look of pure fury), then two Peacekeepers grab me by the arms and drag me, none too gently, through the building. I see another of them pick up Cray from the floor beside me. I don't remember bringing him out, but I guess I must have.

The fire must be contained enough, because no one suggests removing me from the premises. Instead, they yank me down the stairs toward where I know the bank is. Beyond that, I have no idea what's in here. I yell as my ankle smashes hard against the stairs, but they don't stop.

We pass the bank. A few early morning customers (all shopkeepers in the payment lines) stare after me, gape-mouthed, and then I'm dragged around the corner into the dark. A line of narrow windows high up in a row of doors shows pale, early morning light. The Peacekeepers pull open one of these doors and throw me inside. The door slams behind them.

So, we have a jail here. I always figured the Peacekeepers liked their punishments too immediate for such a thing. I figured I'd be whipped, stuck in the stocks, or hanged. Maybe all three. Or maybe Beckett would just shoot me. Dropping me in a locked room, possibly until the Games, hadn't occurred to me.

Not that I was trying to get them to shoot me. I promised Gia, and - unlike some halves of that promise - I don't lie. I just had to make sure that Beckett couldn't blame it on anyone else.

The cell, which has two windows high on the wall, is lighter than the hall outside. I picture the Justice Building in my head. There's a hill that slopes down behind it. I must be on that side of the building.

There's enough sunlight to limp around until I find a light switch. I turn it on, and ugly white light fills the room. There's a cot and a toilet. The walls are pretty banged up, and I can see pictures and initials carved into it. I don't have time to read them. I drag myself to the cot and examine my ankle, which feels like someone has driven an ice pick through it. Manipulating the bones doesn't cause any special discomfort, though, and it's not especially swollen. I guess it's just bruised. Could be worse.

I sit back against the wall.

Unless Beckett has a backup of her files, they're gone. I doubt she can tell one of us from another without her cheat sheet, and if anyone tries to visit me, I'll pretend not to know them.

Of course, all it really means is that the reaping will be as random as usual, and not based on local politics. I may have saved Danny or Kay (maybe… as the sister of a tribute, she may rise up, anyway), but in the end, that means that someone else who might not have been reaped will be.

I can't think about that. Until there are no more Games, then someone is going to be reaped. Every year. And they will mostly die, and their parents will blame it on me.

I can't think about that, either.

I lie down. So far, I'm still pretty well at ease with myself, though I can feel the need for a drink sneaking in. I'm imagining the taste and smell. But I'm not crawling around the cell looking for a spare bottle left behind with a few drops in it. I'm okay. And maybe a little downtime won't kill me.

_Tell me a story,_ Maysilee says in my head. _Once upon a time, at the very edge of the deepest forest, there lived a boy, the son of miners who loved him very much. They were very poor, but very smart._

"Then they died," I say out loud. "They got rich, then died, and the brother - who was also smart - died, and the boy turned into a joke."

But that's not the story. That's not the one in my head. I think back on the dream. On the cartoons I was watching when my mind started ticking again.

_Tell me a story._

I close my eyes and tell it.

_Once upon a time, at the very edge of the deepest forest, there lived a boy, the son of miners who loved him very much. They were very poor, but very smart. In their kingdom, there lived a wicked king who feared a vicious dragon, and the dragon was called Uprising. Every year, he sent children to battle the dragon, and all of them died, even the ones who came home._

One year, the boy was called to fight the dragon. He did not fight bravely, but he wasn't stupid. He saw the dragon, and it was terrifying… but beautiful. He wanted to loose the dragon on the king if he got away. Then the king bade him promise to…

I wince. The king made him promise not to tell stories, is what the king made him promise, and the idiot _actually made the promise_. It was the one thing he was arguably pretty useful for, too. He didn't even argue about it.

Of course that was why Snow asked for that. He tells all the stories - to us out here in the districts, and to his people in the Capitol. The only way to beat his story is by telling a different one, and that's never going to be allowed.

I could break my promise. I know that. But there's still Glass. I doubt he'll ever be doing fine work with his hands again, but by this summer, I'm sure they'll be healed enough to slap around my tributes if I don't go along. Whatever else is happening in the world, I'm still going to be responsible for _them_. I'm not going to let the last few days before they die turn into a nightmare even before the real nightmare starts.

If there's another story to be told, it can't seem to come from me.

_Seem to,_ Maysilee muses. _That's a pretty key distinction there, genius._

Maybe.

_And why did you come straight there this morning?_

So Beckett doesn't set it up for rebel kids to get reaped.

_Why does that matter?_

I frown up at the ceiling. Why? It seemed very logical, and of course, most of the rebel kids are my friends (as much as I can say I have them). But…

I sit up and put my head in my hands, blocking out the light, and the distracting idea of a drink that keeps trying to intrude.

_What are the Games?_

"A story," I whisper. This isn't news - Mom and Lacklen reminded me of it before I went into the arena - but there's more to it. They're _Snow's_ story. He was the first Gamemaker before he was president. They're his story for the Capitol (and possibly the less-than-bright people from the districts): The Capitol is merciful in not destroying the districts, the victors are proof of his generosity, we all live together (once twenty-three kids die every year, of course). The blood of the tributes buys peace for everyone.

And then there's the other story, for the districts: We will take everything. We have all the power, and you have none. We will make you treat the death of your children as entertainment. And whatever mischief you or they cause will be visited on them.

He won't be telling that last part, anyway. Not if Beckett didn't make copies of her records. The Capitol won't _know_ who's causing mischief, and can't punish for it. It's not much, but it's something.

The rest, I need to figure out. It's one thing Chaff didn't talk about during that long night in Danny's shed. We talked about rebels. We talked about our resources, and lines of communication. Weapons came up briefly, though we're nowhere near a point where we could use them. We talked about pie-in-the-sky battle tactics against the Capitol and agreed to start getting a lay of the land there during the summers. We even talked about getting "the message" out. But he never mentioned the story. I'm not even sure he recognizes it as anything important.

But it's the story we need to break, in the districts and - though the thought is kind of dizzying - in the Capitol. If we can't break the story, we'll never stand a chance.

Only we can't just leave it there. People will choose any story over no story. We have to have a better one, a truer one, a-

The cell door opens with a crash.

I open my eyes and look up.

Beckett is standing just inside the cell, shaking with fury. "Accidents happen," she hisses, raising her gun. "They happen all the time."

I stare at the bore of the gun barrel. The way she's aiming, it will probably hit me in the gut, and not kill me. I doubt I'd get the finest medical care for the gut wound this time, though. Maybe a slow death from sepsis.

Unless her hand keeps twitching and she ends up shooting the wall. If she misses, I'll have time to tackle her and knock the weapon out of her hand. Maybe I could even turn it on her.

I decide not to risk it. I have no idea how good a shot she is. "Gun accidents don't happen to victors in districts where only Peacekeepers are allowed to _carry_ guns. About twenty people saw me getting pulled down here. I bet the same number saw you come down here, too."

For a minute, I think it won't matter. Her nostrils flare and she bares her teeth at me. But finally, she lowers the gun. "You think you can do anything, don't you?" Her eyes flicker over me. "You've been holding the Gamemakers up as a defense, you and your… _escort_. Let's see what they really think of all of this."

"You're… calling the Gamemakers?"

She smiles unpleasantly, like she's contemplating a particularly vile new toy. " Yes. And until they send word, you're confined to this cell." She straightens her uniform and turns to leave, but looks over her shoulder with a wicked smile. "And by the way," she says, "it's dry."

She slams the door behind her. A minute later, the electricity is cut, leaving me with only the dim morning light coming through the high windows.

I lie down on the cot and don't think.

I don't know how long I've been here when I start to feel queasy. It gets worse, and I dive across the cell to the toilet and vomit up quite a lot, though I don't remember eating much. I stay there on the floor. The light from the windows is glassy and weirdly warped, and my pulse seems to be much quicker than usual.

I barely hear the tap on the window, and it might have been going on for a while by the time I notice it. I squint. There's a shadow up there.

I force myself to my feet and go closer. The shadow resolves itself into the face of Sae, who used to run the Community Home. I guess they're not too concerned about people escaping through windows barely six inches high, because when I pull the cot over and stand on it, it's not really hard to pull the pane over to one side and open it.

"Here," Sae says, shoving a bottle into my hand. "Beer, from Murphy's pub. You'll owe them when you get out, but it keeps off the shakes."

I take it. I can't imagine that beer, which is barely more than water, will do anything, but I start drinking. It helps a _little_, I guess.

"He knows what you did this morning - old man Murphy, I mean. Everyone knows."

I finish the beer and tip the bottle up as high as I can to get the last drop.

Sae takes it without comment, then shoves a little bowl through. "Soup."

"Not hungry."

"Didn't ask. Some of my Home kids are grown now, and they're bringing me things. I can share with you, for Indigo. But this is all I can spare."

I stare down at the soup and think of Digger. I drink it. I have no idea what's in it, and it's probably better not to ask. What the hell, though… I've eaten vermin before. I hand her back the bowl. "Thanks. You come up and visit when I'm out, Miss Sae, and you can eat whatever _I_ can spare. Anything you like. It'll be a fair deal." Of course, she knows perfectly well that what I can spare is enough to keep her fed for weeks, but she doesn't argue.

"I'd be obliged." She looks around nervously, then reaches down for the little bowl. "I best get out, or I'll end up in the next cell."

She disappears. The light outside looks like it might already be early evening. I feel a little better, though not much. Beer is not what I need or want, and while my heart slows down a little, the maddening images in my head get clearer.

I try to think my way out of the cell. I imagine Lacklen trying to get me to escape one of his traps. But every few minutes I'm interrupted by the thought that I really want a drink. It's annoying. I could think better if I just took care of that.

The cell door is a plain mechanical lock, but I don't have any hair pins or wires to try and fiddle it with.

Besides, Beckett isn't Lacklen. She'd find a way to blame someone else if I escaped.

I stay.

I can't sleep at night, and my head is pounding again. At one point, I think I hear someone else in the cell with me, breathing softly. Another time, I smell Digger, cooking on the fence. I bolt for the toilet again and throw up nothing at all, though I retch miserably for a long time. I feel warm hands all over me. Like the hands at the party in District Two, I don't know who they belong to, and I scream for someone to get them off me.

No one comes.

By dawn, I'm thinking about nothing other than how long it will be until Sae brings me something. I try to knock myself out, so at least I'll get some sleep until then, but my sense of self-preservation keeps me from hitting my head that hard. I hold my breath, thinking I might pass out, but that doesn't work, either.

Someone brings me food - local tessera bread and a glass of water to soften it with. I don't eat it.

Sae finally comes in the afternoon. I drink the beer in two long swallows. Eat the soup. Nibble at the bread that's been sitting on my cot for hours.

The next two days are the same, except for not hearing any more voices. They seem to go on forever, but I look at the bread. Two pieces. Two days. No one has brought anything else.

I beg Sae for something stronger. She tells me to deal with it. The beer puts off the shakes and seizures, and she's not interested in getting me drunk. I offer her large amounts of money for something stronger. She tells me to get some sleep. I go back to my cot and just lie there, sweating heavily against the thin sheets. The nausea finally passes, but I don't feel like eating.

I finally do sleep on my third night in jail. My body just can't stay awake anymore. I dream of the golden squirrels in the arena. They eat all the flesh off my body, and I can see my innards down through my ribcage. My heart is beating so fast that I know it's going to explode. There's a pool of filth in my gut where the axe went in. I find I can turn my eyes around and look at my brain, which is on fire somewhere inside, sending out noxious volcanic gas from fissures in the surface.

When I wake up, I'm not alone in my cell.

At first, I think it's a hallucination, some fevered dream spit out from my brain. The woman is tall, and too thin to be real. Her hair is silver - not as another word for gray, but actually silver, sparking and metallic. She's wearing something skin tight and green, and around her waist, there's something that matches her hair. As I stare at her, I realize that it's a girdle, that it's laced to pull her stomach in. She must be missing ribs, because it goes on far too long.

For all of that, she doesn't look frightening, just odd. Maybe I'm just getting used to seeing Capitol people. I don't know. She looks vaguely amused, like Dad used to if I happened to get something past him. I shake this off. I doubt my father would appreciate being compared to a Capitol woman.

"Awake?" she asks. Her voice is low and oddly pleasant. It doesn't seem to disturb the air.

I am honestly not sure if I'm awake, or if this woman is standing here, but I nod and sit up.

"I am Hadriana Livingston, Head Gamemaker," she says, and smiles fondly. "You've been causing trouble, haven't you, Mr. Abernathy?"

"Yeah," I say. I haven't talked much in the last day, and it feels strange for sound to be coming out of my throat. It hurts a little, too, so I must be awake. "Guess so."

"Do you have an explanation? Or were you just seeing how far you're allowed to go?" She sighs. The expression on her face is genuinely sorrowful. "Because I'm afraid you've crossed that line, if it was just a stunt to test us."

My head is muddled from three days without drinking and not enough sleep, but it's not muddled enough not to realize that I'm in real trouble. The Gamemakers didn't just send a memo. They didn't send permission for Beckett to whip me. They sent the head Gamemaker.

I weigh my options. I could tell her I was drunk and confused, but I don't think I could make that stick. Why would I wander down here? I could tell the truth, but I promised Gia that I wouldn't kill myself, and I can't pretend that would be anything else. Everyone tells me I think like a Gamemaker. I'm going to have to now.

"Well?" Livingston prods. "Do you have something to say for yourself?"

Sure, I think. I was afraid that they were going to try and reap kids based on who's been vandalizing the gallows. Most of them are my friends and -

_Tell me a story, Haymitch._

My brain sends up a flare. It's weak, but I feel it. It's the story. The story they have to tell. Everyone wants to "win" the reaping. It's a big chance to get out.

I smile. "She was trying to corrupt the reaping," I say.

Livingston barely contains a grin. "Oh, really? What do you mean by that?"

"Well, you know that sometimes, people have the crazy idea that they use the reaping as a punishment. We both know the truth about that, right?"

She sits down on a plain stool and gives me a "go ahead" motion with her hand. "Of course."

"Well, I think Officer Beckett had been collecting names in there, and she meant to corrupt the reaping, and make people believe that crazy story. I couldn't let her do that."

Livingston laughs. "You're good, Abernathy. We, um, _both know_ exactly how true that is, but I can't even argue with it."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Mm-hmm." She shakes her head. "Do you know we had Plutarch Heavensbee put you through our testing tool?"

"What?"

"The game you were playing with him in the Capitol. We use it to test apprentices. He's an accepted apprentice with eight months experience under his belt. You wiped the floor with him."

"Why would you do that? I'm not going to be a Gamemaker."

"No. That's a job reserved for Capitol-born citizens. But we were curious. We've been studying you in the arena, you know. I've watched so much of your game that I feel like I know you well. It'll be required for all apprentices from now on. You're making us step up our game."

The nausea comes back in a wave. "And what do you think you learned?"

"We're hiding the muttation delivery systems better, for one thing."

"Great."

"You know the president is exceedingly angry at you, don't you?"

"Is there anyone he's _not_ angry at?"

"You do have a good grasp of things, don't you?"

I shrug.

She sighs. "Haymitch, I can get you out of this one, and I will… but you can't do it again."

"Or what? You'll have some crazy girl put an axe in me?"

"We can't afford to lose a victor in this district. I reminded the president of that."

"Oh, thanks."

"So he agreed to let it go this time. Next time, you'll be brought in for re-education. As far as the country will know, you'll be living out your dream of attending university. In a way, it will be true. And like so many university students, you'll just come home with a lot of new ideas in your head. The sort of ideas the president would rather you came to naturally."

"Why not just pack me up this time?"

"You're not old enough for the university story to hold. But believe me, your interest in attending will be a major theme of your publicity for a while." She stands up. "For myself, I'd rather prefer to keep you somewhat more challenging. It keeps us on our toes."

"Always glad to be useful."

She smiles again. It's not a predatory smile like Beckett's, or a warm one like Gia's. It's actual _fondness._ I don't get it. "I'll go arrange for you release, then. Do _not_ test me any further. I don't have any more leeway to give you."

"Miss Livingston?" I call as she turns to leave.

"Yes?"

I can't push for anything that matters from her. I can't ask her to save any friends who get dragged into the arena. I can't beg her to stop the Games. I ask, "Can you keep an eye on it and make sure it's a clean reaping, anyway?"

"Believe me," she says, "we are keeping an eye on the situation."

"Why is she here?"

The smile doesn't change its shape, but it suddenly seems less real, like it's a plastic mold of a smile. "She's your head Peacekeeper," Livingston says. "There are always reasons for something like that. Just like there are reasons for your escort."

She leaves.

I listen to her footsteps as she goes up the stairs, then lean back against the wall. A reason. Like Glass. Because Snow keeps the nutty ones around, even when they cross boundaries, so that someone can swoop in and rescue us from them.

Or warn us what will happen if we cross them.

The head Gamemaker is better at playing the game than most of the others, but she's still playing it, whether she's fond of me or not. Her deal is about as subtle as Snow's… and I have about as much choice about it.

Half an hour later, the Peacekeepers come and let me out. They make me work on cleaning up the office for two hours, scrubbing char off the walls, but they can't hold me long. Beckett sits at her desk and glares at me the whole time, then waves me off at lunchtime and sends me home.

I collect Sae on the way, and we have a nice, big meal together in my kitchen. I send her home with leftovers.

After she leaves, I start drinking.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter Twelve**  
I don't spend too long in the fog after I get out of jail. Four or five days, maybe, before I get a sort of even keel - enough liquor to keep off the demons, not so much that I'm non-functional. I can sleep. If I dream much, I don't remember it. I decide that I've finally found the formula, and carefully set out the right amounts for each day. I plan to stick to it, too. We're heading up for the Games now. I can't be passing out drunk for them - or hallucinating - no matter how much I'd prefer to be.

I start going into town. I do some of my allotted drinking at Murphy's pub, where the miners make up most of the clientele. Elsie Gownken is always around, trying to cadge drinks off of people. I have plenty of money, so I buy her drinks until the bankers determine that I'm spending too much in one place. They seem to have a morbid fear that I'm secretly paying off the merchants' loans and only pretending to buy the merchandise. They clearly do not know District Twelve. No true Twelver, town or Seam, would ever let me do such a thing.

At the bar, I pick up the fact that the uprising, such as it was, has ended. No one says it outright, but with the reaping casting its shadow darker every day, there's no talk about petty vandalism. My burning of the records seems to have driven home to the parents of District Twelve exactly what they were risking. I guess that's good. It's run its course, like Chaff said. What's not so good is that the bad blood with the merchants has lasted.

Old Murphy - who is some relation to the butcher and to Danny's girlfriend, Mir, but I'll be damned if I know _what_ - is stone-faced as his customers complain about how privileged the merchant class is. There are many jokes about blondes, most on the theme that they're tighter with their money than their morals. ("What's the only way to get money away from a blond girl?" "Tell her to hold it between her knees.") Glen Everdeen decks an old miner who makes a lewd comment about Ruth Keyton, and it ends up in a pretty vicious brawl, in which I'm the only one fighting Glen's side. Both of us are pretty well dismissed, as he "ain't thinking with his brain," and I'm pickled enough that I've been "getting my tugs" from girls in Career districts and the Capitol.

Glen and I do manage to do some damage together, though, and after we're asked to leave the bar, I listen to him fume for about an hour about how easily they've all been played by the Capitol. He's no scholar, but I decide he's about a thousand miles from dumb.

The merchants, who feel personally betrayed, aren't much better. The Mellarks go on as always, but the butcher - Mir's mother - cuts off credit completely, which means there is no legal way for most of the Seam families to get meat, except on payday at the mines. The Cartwrights continue to make their charity shoes, but gone are the big smiles and cheerful conversations that always accompanied them before. Worst of all, the Donners - whose shop windows were smashed by a handful of idiots after dark - have withdrawn completely. I go in for some sarsaparilla candies on my seventeenth birthday (I have been drinking, and thinking in a maudlin way that I want to spend it remembering everyone I've lost in the last year in one concrete way or another), and the look Mr. Donner gives me before he realizes that I'm not a kid from the Seam anymore… well, I think maybe _they_ ought to spend a little time remembering Maysilee, though I don't quite have the heart to suggest it.

I ask if I can visit Kay, who I saw through the upstairs window. Mr. Donner thinks for a long time before agreeing to it.

She doesn't stand up from the couch when I come up the stairs, though she makes a motion to do so. She winces and draws in a sharp breath, then sinks back into the cushions. She's lost a lot of weight, especially around her face, and her short, tea-browned hair seems listless. She doesn't even _remind_ me of Maysilee right now. "Haymitch," she says. "Why are you here?"

"I was thinking about Maysilee."

She sniffs. "I think we pretty well established that I'm not her."

I shrug and sit down on the ottoman across from her. "So… what's going on here?"

She points to the couch, and the ratty blanket she has around her. "This?"

"Yeah."

"My back hurts. My neck, too. Ruth says that last time in the pillory, with the weights, I must have cracked something in my spine."

"You need real medicine? I can -"

"First, no you can't, you know they won't let you. Second… I have medicine. Daddy made nice with the Peacekeepers, and we got some from the liaisons' stores." She smiles, and I realize that her face has a rubbery, drugged quality to it. "Works great," she says. "Still hurts, but I just don't care as much."

"I fully sympathize," I say. "I don't mean to bother you."

"It's fine. It's good to have someone to talk to. I haven't been to school for a while."

After this, we go a long while without actually talking. I think of a few things to say, but I decide it's Maysilee I want to say them to. Maybe I'll go to the cemetery.

I'm about to take my leave when she says, quietly, "If they reap me, I'm sunk. I can barely get up. I'd never be able to run." I look at her sharply. She looks back up. Her eyes are glassy. "I wouldn't expect you to be able to do anything about it. I just want you to know that. In case. I don't want you beating yourself up if you can't save me. Maysilee wouldn't want you to. And it'll be the same with anyone else."

"Kay - "

"I dream about her sometimes. She's always worried about you and me. Always saying…" Her voice trails off and she sighs. "It hurts, Haymitch. It really hurts."

I go over to her and kiss her forehead, then leave. I decide not to visit her again. I don't think we're very helpful to each other.

I don't end up visiting the cemetery until the next week, exactly a year after the reading of the Quell card. For this particular occasion, I've allowed myself an extra allowance of liquor for the day, and I'm as numb as Kay was by the time I get there.

I sit down on the cold, muddy grass in front of the tribute memorial and stare up at the pictures of Beech, Gilla, and Maysilee, all in their parade costumes. I was with Gilla a year ago. I remember her asking what I thought the Quell would be, since I knew things. I was bored. Playing a game with my brother on the floor of the Community Home. It couldn't matter to me.

Now it will matter to me every year. Every name and every picture added to this memorial is going to matter, because they will never be strangers again. I'll know them all, and try to save them all, and fail them all, just like Duronda did. I lean forward, putting my head against the cold stone beside Maysilee's name. I imagine that I'm right above her bones now. Is she down to bones yet? How long does it take a body to break down completely? Why doesn't the Capitol cremate tributes? Do they just want the families to be tormented by seeing an actual body?

A cold rain starts to fall, and I want the blanket from the arena, the one that burned up against the force field. I want to be huddled under it with Maysilee, telling her all about my girl back home.

I try to talk to her, but she's never felt further away. I can't seem to get anything out, and eventually, I fall asleep - or pass out - there on the ground. I'm conscious later of someone putting a blanket around me and helping me up, but I don't know who it is until I realize I'm on the back of Merle Undersee's gardening cart. He gets me up the stairs to my room, opens up my bed, and dumps me into it without comment.

"What?" I say. "You're not tucking me in?"

He doesn't smile. He shakes his head and says, "You need to stop this, Haymitch." A few minutes later, I hear him doing something outside.

Two days later, I get a delivery of shrimp from District Four. There's a note from Blight in Seven with it. "I remembered you liked this when you visited," it says. "I heard it's your birthday. Sorry this is late. Hope it was happy."

I frown at the ice-packed case. I don't even remember shrimp in Seven, and, while Blight might be more likely than, say, the District One victors to wish me a happy birthday, I can't say he's the first one I'd expect it from, either. I open the box. There's a plastic lining under the shrimp and I see one long crease down it. It's been pulled up.

I dump the shrimp and pull out the lining. Under it, there's a note wrapped in plastic. I open it. It's written in my code, so it doesn't have much nuance, but I recognize the light touch of the pen on the paper, the airy feel of the writing.

Gia.

I stare at it for a long time before I try to read it.

She doesn't use the code expertly. We didn't exactly practice. But I can get enough from it. She's safe, presumably in District Four, given the packing. She has a new name. She's… I frown at the symbol. I never had a reason to make up some symbols, like the symbol for "married." Instead, she's used the symbol for "wife." She's a wife. There's also the symbol I used in history class for "heir."

Gia has a new name, a new husband, and apparently, a new "heir" on the way. I guess it's just as well she disappeared, or everyone would be speculating on whether or not _I_ have an heir on the way, too. I try to pretend for a minute that this is possible, but I know it's not. Science wasn't my best subject, but I do know enough biology to know that two one-sided kisses and a handful of fantasies wouldn't get us there.

I decide it's good that she's got a life.

The writing gets a little darker after this, and I picture her in a fisherman's house, maybe with her hand resting on her expanding waistline, thinking about what to say. What she manages in code is, "See you television drink. Prefer stop. Not safe health. Young strong man. Love."

I guess her meaning is clear enough, even if my code doesn't exactly lend it the right syntax. And of course, she couldn't have been much clearer about her preferences regarding my drinking. I try to work up the anger I've felt at her about the medicine she gave me, but sitting here, holding her clumsy note in my hand, knowing that she used this many channels - even going through her ex-lover - just to send it… all I can really work up is a vague sadness.

I move the note aside, figuring that I should put the shrimp in my freezer until I'm ready to eat them, and I notice something on the back.

In perfectly normal, recognizable script, she's written. "I love you. PLEASE take care, and try to have a happier seventeenth year." It's signed with the initials "C.O.", which must be for her new name. Doing that was dangerous beyond all reason, and I can't even see how I could use it. I don't exactly have a full listing of District Four names to work with. But the Capitol does. She can't do things like that. I'll have to get word to her through Blight.

I try to get up, meaning to put away the shrimp and write a note to send Blight in a box of cookies, but I can't seem to move very far. I put the note up against my face, hoping it will smell like her perfume or her shampoo or her lotion, but of course, it just smells like fish. Maybe Gia smells like fish now, too. I guess I'll never know.

Outside, I hear Merle drive away as the sun sets. I sit in the dark of my hall, not fumbling for the lights. So many dead. I've pushed Danny's family so far away that I haven't spoken to him for a month. Gia has a whole new life, where she's married and taking care of someone else now. The only people I see are the ones I drink with at Murphy's, and most of them despise me.

I am utterly alone.

Except I'm not.

I look at the frozen shrimp on the floor and start gathering them up and putting them back in their box. It's like Drake said - there's _us_ and there's _them_, and, for good or ill, I'm part of an _us_.

I pick up the box of shrimp. It seems very heavy, and it takes a long time to get to my feet and carry it to the kitchen. I finally make it and manage to get to the freezer, then I limp to my study. The phone has been sitting here, silent, for months now. I don't know who to call, or how. Finally, I look at the invoice from the shrimp packaging. Blight's number is on it. It seems as good a place to start as any.

I dial.

It rings four or five times, then I hear a double-click when he picks up. I'm guessing both of our phones are bugged.

"Hello?" he says warily.

"Hi," I say. "It's me. Um, Haymitch Abernathy. In Twelve?"

"Hi, Haymitch."

"I got your birthday present. Um, thanks." I stare at the phone. I don't think I've ever seen a device less conducive to talking. I know some of them have video screens, but this one doesn't, and I have no idea whether or not Blight wants to be talking to me, or is just being polite. "It was nice to hear from someone," I finish.

"Trust me, I know," he says. His voice is friendly enough. "I live up here alone, too, and there's not even a logging camp nearby this year."

"Nearby?"

"Oh, they go up and down the district. Closest camp is about three miles from the Village, but they haven't been there for two years. Sometimes I drive into the city just to see someone's face. And I bet you remember how bad it smells there, if that tells you anything…"

Blight is better at this than I am, and I let him talk about whatever he wants. A few times, he tries to prompt me to say something, but I can't think of anything that doesn't sound like "Poor me," so I just put it back in his hands. We talk for maybe fifteen minutes. I feel a little less alone. I give him my phone number, in case he ever wants to know anything about Twelve.

Half an hour after I hang up, I'm still sitting at my desk, staring at the shrimp invoice and trying to think of what else to do. The phone rings loudly. I let it go three times, then pick it up. Again, there's a double-click.

A nervous little voice says, "Haymitch? Beetee… from Three? I heard you had a birthday."

Beetee's as bad as I am on the phone, and that doesn't last long, but the word apparently is going out. Mags Donovan calls me, and so does Saffron Abatty (again, with the suggestion that I quit drinking). Woof from Eight has a funny story about the kids I was with in the snowstorm, and how they all built a fort out of the snow later that day. Earl from Ten has just gotten a new horse, and been riding around on the range all day. Finally Chaff calls me, tells me to watch for a birthday present, and teases me mercilessly about my string of "conquests" on the tour. In all, I spend about an hour on the phone with other victors. All of them close with a variation on, "Hey, I'll see you in a couple of months, right?"

Like I'll have a choice.

But I feel a little bit better, and a little bit worse, because there's something sick about looking forward to the Hunger Games. I bet they'd all understand me if I said that - and I bet I don't really _need_ to say it.

When I go out the next day, I feel different - maybe not as miserably lonely as I was, but not quite as connected to District Twelve, either. This is probably good. The fewer people I have here, the fewer anyone can target. I drop by several shops to spend money, and spend a little while in the bakery with the Mellarks. Danny is seeing a new girl, Looz Magaverty, and his parents are delighted, but he bristles at them when they say they're glad he's done with Mir.

Later, over the kneading table, he says, "She's not that bad! Honestly, I can't believe I broke up with her just because my parents wanted me to."

I pull myself up onto a counter. "Your parents are smart."

"You don't know her. She's… okay, she's not sweet. But she's not a monster. People just treat her that way."

"You're still…?" I make a non-descript motion with my hand.

"Not really. Not much, anyway."

I have nothing at all to say to that. I figure that eventually, he'll figure out who she is. I change the subject and ask if anyone's talking about the reaping yet. Without the Quell card this year, people are putting it off, though a few girls are already talking parade costumes.

"Are you okay, Haymitch?" he asks out of nowhere.

"What?"

"You haven't been by in ages, and you seem… a little out there."

I shrug. "Thinking about who's going to die on my watch next isn't a lot of fun. And you haven't been out to the Village, either."

"I'm not allowed. You know why."

"I guess."

We talk a little more about not much of anything. I don't have any messages for him to pass, though I might have more, once I've had a chance to talk to everyone this summer. I tell him about my phone calls.

He looks down at the bread he's shaping. "Must be nice. Knowing people on the outside." He laughs. "You know, it's funny that you don't like Mir. And she doesn't like you. She feels like District Twelve is too small for her, too. I think she'd kill to know people on the outside."

"I _did_," I remind him.

He looks up, abashed, then goes back to work, changing the subject entirely.

I leave the bakery a little bit later, and go for a walk down on the Seam. People watch me curiously, but don't interfere with me. I see dirty kids in the road, tossing handmade balls around. A girl leaning heavily on a crutch stares at me from her door. A miner's wife with a baby at her breast nods a cool greeting to me. I pass a group of boys I used to know in school. Elmer Parton is sitting out in the last light, finishing his math homework. We pass a few words. He's really hoping to start at the mines in training for blasting. He sounds genuinely enthusiastic about it. Clay Hawthorne is home from the mines for the night, and is sitting in front of his house and whittling. I can't tell what he's making. He looks at me with only the vague recognition that I got in other districts.

This becomes my habit for the next few weeks. I get up in the early afternoon, have a smaller drink or a watered one, then go to the school. I sit on the far side of the fence and watch people in physical education. This one could make a go of it. That one wouldn't make it off the platform. She'd find allies fast. He'd last a while in the wilderness, as long as I make sure he gets food. If it's the tall girl with the too-small skirt, I could use that speed she has running - coach her on how to get off the platform. If it's the boy who lifts a smaller kid over his head, I can teach him to fight off attackers. If it's one of the starving, sickly, or injured ones, I don't know what I'll do.

The next train into town brings me a present from Chaff - a chess board. I call him, and we play a long distance game. He beats me, but says I did better than he'd expected. He'll teach me real gambits when I get to the Capitol. There will be time while the tributes are being prepped. He does not say that there will also be time after they die, but I guess we both know it. I think about saying hello to whoever is listening in from the Capitol - Mom always said it was rude to ignore even a shy visitor - but I decide that might be pushing it.

The weather gets warmer. A Seam girl named Brosia Creelman, blushing crazily, asks me if I'd maybe like to take a walk with her sometime. I say no without giving it any thought, and later, when I do think about it, I find out that she's going out with Moose Makemie. It's just as well, probably.

There's another brief flare-up between the town and the Seam, ending up with a brawl outside the school. I don't know who started it or why, but it's a pretty vicious fight, and I guess either of the girls in it might last at least a little while.

I'm rough on my clothes when I drink - which is still every day, and no matter how well laid-out my plan is, I always end up drinking more at night than I mean to - and I go to the Breens' tailor shop pretty frequently. They have a fifteen year old daughter named Violet. She's very pretty, and for the first time since Gia disappeared, I find myself having occasional pleasant fantasies. Before I can decide on my own that it's a bad idea to ask her out, her parents make the decision for me by very deliberately removing her from the room every time I come over. I take the hint and keep my mouth shut.

Despite the constant thoughts about the Games, Reaping Day still manages to sneak up on me. Caesar Flickerman calls me two days before, telling me to be ready for a quick interview as the "departing victor." Apparently, Glass was supposed to warn me about this. "I had a feeling he might have forgotten," Caesar says. "So I thought I'd warn you - be sober and cleaned up."

I look at myself in the full length mirror in the bathroom. For weeks, I've thought I was doing pretty well, but when I see myself, I see I haven't. My shaving has been haphazard since I gave up on Violet Breen, and stubble is growing unevenly all over my face. My hair is a matted mess. My clothes are covered with stains, and when I take them off, I see that the body under them is filthy. I don't remember the last time I used my shower, but I'm guessing it's a good three weeks. I stink. I'm drunk again, despite a good-faith effort not to be. It's no wonder no one has talked to me in town. What do you say to someone who looks like this?

I lather up my face and shave, which helps a little, and then I get into the shower, which helps more. I can't do too much with my hair, other than get the tangles out. Maybe Medusa can help, but she'll be assigned to the boy tribute now, not to me.

I don't have time to properly clean the house, but I throw all the windows open to get the stench out the next day, and shove most of the piles of clothes and garbage into a closet.

I lock myself out of my liquor cabinet and throw the key out the window in the garden I don't visit. By three in the morning, of course, I'm out there, crawling around in the shadow of the fence where Digger died, pawing through the grass looking for it. I don't find it.

I'm a little wild when the interview team gets there at eleven-thirty, but they're from the Capitol, and they think nothing of it. Someone hands me a pill, which I dry swallow. Things clear up quickly. Thankfully, my preps are with them, and Medusa is able to give my hair a once-over. There's no time for anything complicated with my skin, though Igerna looks at me like its state is a personal betrayal of her. Lepidus has sent along a clean suit, but he's busy arranging the wardrobes on the train.

The reporter is a young woman who I've seen on television pretty frequently. She asks me if I'm glad the year is over, and if I have any thoughts to summarize it all. I tell her that I plan to think as little as possible about this year in the future, and I am entirely sincere in this intent.

"Are you ready to be a mentor?" she asks cheerfully.

I lie and say that I am.

I hop a ride into town with the production crew. People are already being gathered. I go up to the stage and take a seat beside the mayor. Glass is surveying the reaping balls. He turns and looks at me with flat hatred in his eyes, then goes back to his business. I see that, while his casts are off and he seems to have some function in his hands, his fingers are permanently curled, and he's carrying a little pinching device, which he uses to practice pulling a few cards. He ostentatiously remixes the bowls when he puts them back.

The ceremony is shorter this year, since there's no Quell to explain. Glass just berates us for a little while about rebelling, tells us that we owe blood for it, and reminds us how merciful it is that the Games prevent "even more bloodshed" and allow us to live in peace.

"And now," he says, "it's time to choose this year's tributes. Because the treason began among women, a young woman will be the first called." He reaches into the reaping ball, pulls a slip from somewhere in the middle, and reads, "Ginger McCullough!"

The name is familiar. I know it from somewhere, but I can't place it. Not one of my friends. I am breathing a sigh of relief when I first see the girl.

She stumbles out of the crowd of fifteens, looking terrified, and limps up toward the stage, leaning heavily on her single crutch.

I have to help her up the stairs.


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter Thirteen**  
The tributes are supposed to stand during the reading of the Treaty of the Treason, and I know that if Ginger asks to sit, it will be seen all over Panem. I stand up beside her to give her a crutch on the other side.

Glass smirks and reaches into the boys' reaping bowl. He pulls out Elmer Parton's name. Elmer comes up to the stage quietly, his eyes cast down. He's not sickly or injured, but unless the arena can be worked like a math problem, he's not strong. He stands on my other side. I think for a minute that it would be good for him to take my place and help hold Ginger up, but that's not the way things are done at reapings. The tributes, being prepared to battle to the death, don't generally acknowledge each other. It would show the other freshly minted tributes that they might be weaknesses for one another.

_But there are old women weeping at home in the Capitol over the poor little girl,_ some cold corner of my brain whispers. _And if they see him helping, they'll want to reach out and…_

I shut the voice out. The best they could do is save one of them, and they'll know it. They'll paralyze themselves wondering whether to help the poor little girl or the gallant boy helping her, and end up giving me nothing.

Mayor Hammond does his best to read the treaty quickly, but it seems to take forever before he finishes, and I can see sweat running down the sides of Ginger's face. She's breathing shallowly, and she's very pale. By the time we're escorted to the Justice Building, I can tell that she's about to pass out, and as soon as the cameras are shut out, she stumbles and falls against my side.

I look at Elmer. "I have to get her to the meeting room. I'll…" I don't know what I'm supposed to say.

He shrugs. "'S okay," he says. "I don't expect you can do much with me, anyway."

As the Peacekeepers lead him in the direction of the smoking room where Gilla went last year, I scoop up Ginger and carry her to the sitting room where Maysilee went. I set her down on the couch. There's a familiar-looking basket of bread on the end table.

"I'm pretty much dead, right?" she asks.

"I'll think of something."

"There's nothing to think of."

"Don't talk like that, I'll -"

But I am interrupted by the high voice of Ausonius Glass outside the door. "Yes," he says. "Go in. Say goodbye. And think about how every parent in the Capitol felt when they knew their children were dead. Just like your little cripple is. She won't last the first minute."

Ginger gasps and starts breathing too fast. I don't know what to say, so I just squeeze her shoulder, then go out past her parents and pull Glass away from them. They go in, and I hear everyone crying before I get the door shut.

"What was _that_?" I demand.

"I didn't lay a hand on them," he says, holding up the twisted remains of his fingers. "I believe that was the deal I was informed about."

I let him go. "Snow should have ripped your tongue out, too."

He gives me a disdainful sniff. "You're expected downstairs to meet with the families if they wish. I can't imagine why they would. Duronda usually met them in the entrance hall." He turns and walks away.

I go downstairs to the entrance hall. The mayor looks at me with a certain degree of sympathy, then comes over and says, "No one expects a miracle in the arena. But try to stay sober for them."

I nod. The preps will have something, and I'll take it.

Elmer's father, like my mother, wants to wait for the last visiting spot, so he can be the last to see his son off. He comes to me first. His admonition to stay sober is less kind than the mayor's: "If I find out my son died because you were too drunk to help him, I'll kill you myself."

"I wouldn't argue with you," I say.

Mr. Parton nods. "He's a smart boy, like yourself. You won."

"I did. But I had a lot of lucky breaks."

"But - "

"I'll do everything I can for Elmer," I promise. "I will. I've known him a long time, and he's always been decent to me."

"Decent" may be an overstatement, and "known" certainly is, but we've been in the same grade at school all our lives, and he's at least not been obnoxious. I _will_ do everything I can, but Mr. Parton and I both know that it won't amount to much. He doesn't pretend otherwise. He goes off with an odd dignity. I think Elmer's mother is dead. He'll be alone tonight.

Ginger's parents come after their visit with her, and they can't seem to actually form words. Mrs. McCullough just clings to my jacket and weeps. Mr. McCullough looks lost. Some family member finally leads them away.

I sit down on the bench.

"Haymitch?"

I look up and find Danny in his whites. He's carrying a box. "Danny… what are you doing here?"

"I dropped off the bread, and decided to stick around and see if either of them needed a visitor. You mentioned it last year. I thought it sounded like a good idea. I went in to see Elmer first, since his dad wanted to see him last. He's pretty scared."

"I know."

"I guess you would. Anyway, I thought you might need a visitor, too."

"I'm the mentor. I'll be back one way or the other. I don't get visitors."

"What can I do back here?"

"What's to do? You watch the Games, like you have to. And you most likely watch them die. Because I don't know what to do."

"In other words, the same as it was for forty-six years after Duronda won." He looks at me steadily. "It's not your fault."

"It will be if it's because I screw up."

"You and twenty-odd other mentors."

"Stop, Danny. I can tell myself all of that. It's not going to make any difference when they're in boxes."

He nods. "I know. But… we won't hate you here, any more than people hated Duronda."

"_You_ won't," I point out. "_They_ will."

"Let me do something to help you."

I think about it. I guess there is something that Danny would be better at than I ever would be. "I don't know if you noticed," I say, "but my escort's a bastard. I'll rein him in when I can, but if he says something… you help the families, okay? You know. Be nice to them. You're good at that."

"Okay."

"And I think Mr. Parton's all alone. Maybe you could -"

"He is, and I will."

"Do you know where he lives?"

"I'll just follow the camera crews."

"Thanks." He holds up the box. I recognize it as one of the bakery's shipping boxes. "Here," he says. "Carrot cake. Maysilee did tell you to try some. There's enough for all three of you."

I take it. "How much do I owe you?"

"It's a gift, Haymitch. Warm up to the concept." He smiles and rolls his eyes at me.

"Well… how much _would_ it be worth?"

"Why?"

Of course, it's because I intend to pay for it as soon as I get back, but I say, "For all I know, I'll have to report it as a sponsor gift."

"It's a gift to _you_. Mentors don't have sponsors."

I guess I can ask his dad. I nod. "Thanks."

"You can do this," he says. "And we're with you here, whether you believe it or not. You're still District Twelve… whether you want to be or not." Out of nowhere, he hugs me. I am so surprised by this that I don't even think to respond to it. Hugging each other is not something boys do in District Twelve. I haven't been hugged since Gia left. This is distinctly not the same. His mouth is beside my ear, and he whispers, "Open that box when no one's around." He pulls away.

I make a face and raise my voice. "Dammit, Mellark, if I wanted someone's tongue in my ear, I'd've called your girl."

"Oh, that'll teach me to try and be supportive."

"Yeah, well…"

"Anyway, it wouldn't work. My girl has better taste than me, obviously." He makes a show of preening.

"I'm not sure on the evidence that either one of you has any taste." I kick him out, and shift the box around carelessly, like it couldn't matter less.

I never paid any attention to what happened with Duronda after the reaping, and of course, last year, my mentor was still in District Two when the four of us were carted away, so I have no idea where I'm supposed to go next. This, of course, is the escort's supposed job, but Glass was too busy insulting bereaved parents to fill me in on the protocol. I find the segment producer among the technicians, and he says I'm supposed to be on board the train already when it leaves. They'll be shooting video of the tributes, and the team isn't really supposed to be in the middle of the shot. There is a car waiting in back.

It isn't waiting alone. Glass is sitting in the back seat. He looks disappointed to see me. Apparently, I was supposed to be wandering around like an idiot, and maybe missing the train.

"I need the schedule," I say.

He looks down his nose at me, then takes one of his little pincers and snags a piece of paper from a briefcase beside him. I take it. I should have been on the train ten minutes ago, but the driver, at least, seems not to be on Glass's side here. Once we're on the train, dinner is in an hour. I remember Gia spending time teaching everyone proper Capitol manners. I barely remember them, but I guess I could give that a go. I doubt Glass will bother. After the meal, we'll watch the reapings to see the other tributes, and I'll try to figure out what to do. Other than that and meals tomorrow, there's nothing scheduled on the train.

When we get there, I find Lepidus in a state, moving out the clothes that are the wrong size for the tributes to a closed storage car and directing interns (Plutarch Heavensbee among them) to pick good colors for Ginger and Elmer. He has a computer of some kind in his hand, and it's giving him readouts from pictures just taken on the platform. I ask him if he can get Ginger a walking stick. He tells me that we'll need to talk later; he's too busy now.

I make my way to the mentor's compartment, which is the same one I traveled in for the Victory Tour. Once I'm there, I open Danny's cake.

I see why he was urgent about the subject - the message is not at all well-hidden. It's just a piece of berry-stained paper tucked into the folded part of the box. I take it out. Across the top, Danny has written, "CMGFSEAOTRTLMRROREENAMIVOIIDCENNNITN." He's drizzled a grid effect over the cake - six by six. I fill the letters out into a quickly-drawn square and read them on the verticals. It's a code so simple that Chaff told us not to use it, but it's quicker to remember in a hurry than my shorthand. "Came on morning train from District Eleven."

Chaff has been more careful with the code, using mine and breaking it up in odd places. He doesn't bother trying for any kind of logical grammar, just using the symbols to express ideas… which are pretty clear. The gist of the message is that he got word from spies in the Capitol - mentors are being shut out of the pre-Games, which will now be controlled by the Capitol staff. At first, I puzzle over why this is so important that he'd risk using Danny to tell me, but it dawns on me with mounting disgust. The Capitol is a step ahead. They are taking away any power we might have to set the narrative of the Games. And I will not be able to influence anything about how my tributes are presented. That's why Lepidus couldn't talk to me, even when I asked him for something.

Glass must have made his own deal to counter mine. I have put some controls on what he can do to my tributes in private… but now, the escorts and stylists will have full control in public.

I'm guessing he means to wait for an opportune time to put me in my place with this.

There is no handy fire, so I rip the message up into small pieces, eat a few of them, and flush the rest down the toilet.

I can't do anything about it now, other than not give Glass any chance to lord it over me.

By the time it's gone, the train is moving, and District Twelve is slipping away behind it. I go to the preps and ask if they have any of the medicine Gia gave me last winter. Fabiola brought some. I put it into a glass of water and wait for it to take effect, then go to the parlor car. Elmer is staring morosely out the window. Ginger is on a long couch, her leg stretched out in front of her. It's badly swollen. She's crying, and singing something under her breath. It takes a minute for me to recognize it as a catchy commercial jingle that's been on lately. I think it's advertising some kind of hair product that no one in Twelve could afford to buy.

They both look up at me. By the look in their eyes, they're already dead, and wondering where their names will show up on the memorial.

I take a deep breath and sit down. "Okay," I say. "Let's get the obvious out of the way. How bad is the leg if you get a little rest?"

"I'll be lucky if I don't fall off the platform and blow myself up," Ginger says flatly. "Would that be quicker than getting speared? Which will hurt less?"

I clench my teeth. I was pretty sure I was going to die at this point last year, too. "We're going to get you off the platform," I tell her. "I don't know how, but we will."

"I could carry her," Elmer offers.

"No!" She frowns at him. "You'll lose time."

I shake my head. "They never put two tributes from the same district next to each other. You'll probably be pretty far apart, so we can't plan on you carrying her."

"If I'm close enough, I will."

I nod. Ginger's right that this will slow him down, but so will worrying about her. "Let's find some other solutions."

"Some other girl should have volunteered," Elmer says. "They can volunteer, right? I heard that happens sometimes."

"No one else wants to die either," Ginger says.

"Someone with a fighting chance should have stepped up." He seems to realize that this didn't come out quite right when Ginger picks up her pillow and starts crying into it, and he comes over to sit by her and pat her shoulder awkwardly. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean it that way."

"Yeah, you did. And you're right. But I didn't exactly run up to volunteer for Gilla last year, did I? So why should anyone try to save me? I wasn't going to be any good in the mines anyway."

I stand up. "Enough!"

They both look up at me, startled.

I have a headache, and I lock my hands behind my head. It feels like I'm trying to hold my brains in. "I'm here to help you, not figure out who to blame for you dying. Ginger, if you get a good night's rest before the Games, will your leg be strong enough to not collapse when the platform comes up?"

"I don't know. There are good days and bad days."

"Then let's hope we get a good day, and I'll see if I can make the Gamemakers think it'll be more interesting if they give you a decent brace. If we can get you off that platform and into whatever wilderness they've got out there, I think maybe… " I stop. I don't think she can make it through to the end, no matter how far away from the Cornucopia she gets. I think she's going to die, and die badly. Elmer might last a little longer, but not much. I need to lie to them. I need to tell them they both have a chance. Nothing comes out of my mouth.

"You think maybe _what_?" Elmer prods.

I close my eyes. "I think maybe the limp won't be as big a problem once she's clear of the Cornucopia," I try. "And you… don't even try to get in there."

"You did. You got a good bag of supplies."

"I also got a huge piece of luck, with everyone else being distracted. You can bet they'll be watching for a quick break from my tributes this year. I'm sorry, but it's true. They'll all think I'm telling you to run for the bags as quickly as you can. Whoever's beside you will be watching for it. So _don't do it._"

"So where we going to get food?"

"It'll have to be sponsors. I don't know how to work the system yet, but I promise both of you, I'll learn fast. I won't let you starve to death."

They seem ready to cautiously accept this. Elmer sighs. "So, maybe I can't carry you, but let's find each other as soon as we can. That way, we can share whatever Haymitch gets us -"

"Oh, that's not going to go over well."

I look up. Glass has come in. I have no idea how long he's been standing there. "Why wouldn't that fly?" I ask. "Maysilee and I shared. The audience loved it."

"The audience _tolerated_ it because the field had already been narrowed, and she, at least, had shown some excuse for still being alive. But seeing two weak tributes begging for presents? Not a chance."

"Maybe they'd like to see district partners work together," I suggest.

He bristles. "There is no such thing as a district partner. Have you learned nothing about the Games? The districts destroyed themselves and each other in the Dark Days. The Games exist to make sure you never forget that. I assure you, no one wants it to become a tale of maudlin sentiment. They expect district children to be the barbarians you are. And you always will be." He looks at me. "And remember - all of that chivalry last year ended up with an axe in a pretty girl's skull. You're no better than the rest."

"Never said I was."

"And if you truly intend to master the complexities of the mentor system, might I recommend that you familiarize yourself with the orientation booklet left in your quarters? As I just passed by and saw it still sealed in plastic, I must assume you had other business there earlier."

Since I didn't really look around when I ran in to read Danny's note, I can't say for sure that there was no wrapped up orientation booklet, but I have a sneaking suspicion that there wasn't - that Glass just put it there to make me look incompetent.

"I'll have a look later," I say.

"It's quite complex. You should read it. I'll… prepare the tributes for a meal."

I start to argue, then realize this is the moment he's been waiting for - to tell me in front of them that I'm not in charge of anything before the Games. I nod. "Yes. Thanks for letting me know. I'll see you at dinner." I look at Elmer and Ginger. "Don't let him get to you. Consider him the first person you have to be better than. Which is a pretty easy challenge."

I go back to my room. The door to the parlor slams tightly.

The booklet is, in fact, sitting on my bed… in exactly the place I sat down earlier, so I am now completely sure that Glass just planted it. I pull off the plastic wrapping.

It's a glossy thing, with a picture on the cover showing victors milling around pleasantly in a huge room full of screens. Mags Donovan and Woof are chatting pleasantly in the foreground. There's a bar off to one side, and it looks for all the world like they're at some kind of exclusive nightclub. The title is "The Games For Victors."

I open it to find a rather maniacal welcome back to the Capitol ("You won the Games, and won our hearts!"). All victors, whether mentors or not, are welcome in the Capitol for the duration of the Games. Mentors, once our "duties have been discharged" (in other words, once the tributes are dead), are free to enjoy all the Capitol has to offer. The first few pages show restaurants and clubs, the next few are occupied with the fine shopping we will no doubt want access to. Complex and important things, I'm sure. In the Capitol, we won't even need to carry money - our accounts will be accessed through our thumbprints. I wonder if this is true of the many illegal purchases which I'm sure are available. Could one of Snow's lackeys buy a night with me by entering a thumbprint somewhere? Most of the shop ads have notes of which districts they like to support. None of them list District Twelve.

After the ads, there's a five page listing of rules of conduct (alliances must be formally agreed to by mentors before resources can be shared, mentors and victors - whether in the Capitol or at home - are to be available and presentable for television spots during the Games, mentors are responsible for training of the tributes, victors are expected to meet with sponsors as directed, etc). There is a directory of willing individual sponsors (though we are encouraged to seek out all other avenues), again with mentions of favored districts, this time with their donation amounts from last year.

There are fourteen of these sponsors marked with an asterisk to denote them as new listings this year. All of these are District Twelve sponsors. None of them made large donations in comparison with other people on the list, but I will contact all of them, once I find out what the protocol is. Even their small donations dwarf anything that sponsors at home could send. I read the short biographies, and I see the pattern right away: All women, all older, all single. I hope they weren't looking for "company," because I'll have disappointed them since, but each one is allowed a small comment about why she loves the Games. While most of the career sponsors list excitement and action, all of my sponsors (and Maysilee's, of course) said something about nobility.

I guess I've probably already disappointed them on that score, too.

The price list for arena gifts, which will change by the day, will be posted in the Viewing Center. I never bothered to look at it from home. I could barely keep a roof over our heads; I didn't have anything to send tributes. But some people followed the sponsor boards to entertain themselves and place bets, and I have a distinct memory from my early childhood of one of my father's drinking buddies shouting, "They're charging that for a bottle of water! I could buy the bar for that!"

Old man Murphy, then on better terms with the miners, said, "I'd sell it to you for that and retire!"

After the lists, there's a complicated set of protocols for actually contacting potential sponsors. I'll need help with that. I'm guessing that Glass won't be of much use, but Chaff and Seeder have been doing this for a while. They'll probably help. Of course, once the Games start, sponsors can call in at any time, and that's only a minimal amount of manageable red tape.

Despite Glass's urging me to read it immediately, there is nothing at all that I can do for them from the train. Everything will need to be done in the Capitol.

A light goes on, indicating dinner, and I go to the dining car, carrying the cake. The feast is laid out and Elmer and Ginger are staring at it wistfully. They've changed and cleaned up, but not been through a proper prep, so they look like they're playing dress-up. As I come in, Ginger reaches out for a chicken leg.

"No!" Glass says. "Not until you can recite the proper order of the meal!"

"They're hungry," I say. "Let them eat."

"I am in charge of their behavior," he tells me. "They will not eat until I can be certain they won't embarrass me."

I look at Elmer. "Gia taught us this stuff last year. It's just counting… like math with really weird variables."

"Not really," he says. "But thanks for trying."

"First course," Glass demands.

"Hors d'oeuvres," I say. "Otherwise known as dumb little things that don't fill you up. Then soup, fish, meat, poultry, maybe some fruit or vegetables, then some other damned thing that's supposed to clean up your mouth, then dessert." I put down the box from the bakery. "Let's have dessert first, before Danny's frosting melts."

"I told them to answer it, not you."

I roll my eyes. "First one to shoot it back at me gets the biggest piece."

Between them, they manage to get the courses I just listed right, and I give them the cake first. I don't give any to Glass, who pretends that he wouldn't eat something made by a rube anyway. Maybe it's petty, but so was holding their dinner hostage over something they'll _never_ need to know.

I send them to bed and tell Ginger to put a pillow under her foot to keep it elevated. I think that's the right thing to do. I probably should have called the Keytons to ask before we left. She's humming another commercial as she goes.

I ask Plutarch to make sure I'm up before breakfast, since I don't want Glass playing keep-away again. I get to the dining car, take more medicine to keep off the need to drink, and wait for them. I make sure they start eating before Glass gets in. If the Capitol's going to kill them, I want them to take as much as they can from it first.

Ginger is walking a little bit better, and I see that someone has wrapped a cloth around her knee. She'll need some strength to get through the day. I try to warn them about the upcoming prep in the Capitol, but I can see that neither one of them really believes me when I say that strangers are about to scrub them down, moisturize them, and make them smell like autumn leaves. It actually gets a giggle out of Ginger, and she asks if it's another game where they need to memorize something silly.

Between breakfast and lunch, we watch the reapings around the country. There's a cruelly pretty girl from One, the usual pair of volunteer goons from Two, a boy in Three who looks like Ginger could best him, a couple of lithe eighteen-year-olds from Four… pretty much what we'd expect. They watch with only vague interest. I watch more carefully. Maybe some of them could be allies. Certainly, most will need to be avoided. Chaff's tribute looks like he could lift both of mine over his head. If he's close to Ginger, maybe he could get her off the platform without slowing himself down. Finally, they show us. Ginger realizes how awful she looked, needing help up the stairs. Elmer decides he looks "about in the middle," which I can't argue with, but a twelfth place finish in the Hunger Games won't mean a whole lot.

After lunch, the train dives into the tunnel through the mountains, and emerges alongside the Capitol.

I'm back.


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter Fourteen**  
Apparently, Atilia (who is now Ginger's stylist) got things moving here, and as soon as the car gets us to the training center, she collects Ginger, Elmer, and Lepidus and takes them upstairs. I start to follow, but Glass blocks the way. "You have other duties," he says, and produces a schedule. "I will see to the preparations."

I take the schedule. I'm supposed to be at a mentors' meeting, which starts in five minutes. It's in the "District Lounge," which I have no idea how to get to, and of course, Glass is already gone. I look around for anyone else just coming in, and I spot Earl Bates, from Ten. His tributes both look like strong-backed ranch kids. I guess he must be relieved; his son isn't here.

I go over. "Hey. What's the 'District Lounge'? I -"

He turns, looking frustrated. "What happened?"

"What?"

"What's going on, Haymitch? Everyone's saying you're the one cutting deals."

"Wait… _what?_" I realize what he's talking about and shake my head. "I just made sure Glass couldn't touch my tributes - "

"You made a deal with Snow."

"Yeah. But not _this_ one. It wasn't what I asked for at all!"

He sighs and puts a hand on my shoulder, leading me out of the unloading area. "Look, everyone knows you didn't mean to, but you made your deal with Snow, didn't you?"

"Yeah - "

"So, deals with Snow never end up where you think they will. You should have asked one of us."

"What could you do that I couldn't?"

"Warn you that he was the lesser of two evils, for one thing."

"I know that. But the other one wasn't in my bedroom wearing brass knuckles, and he doesn't come around where the tributes are."

We stop outside a large, ornate wooden door. "I know," he says. "You're in a bad spot. Everyone knows it. But whatever deal Glass made put everyone else in a bad spot, too."

This takes a minute to sink in. All the victors I met, all the ones who called me… I've made their lives more difficult. "So… I don't have any friends in there."

"Yeah. You do. But they're not real happy with you right now."

He opens the door, and we go in. The District Lounge is a round room, with the Capitol seal in the middle of the domed ceiling. Radiating out around it are thirteen wedge-shaped murals. One of them, obviously depicting District Thirteen, is entirely black. Twelve's shows dirty miners with lit-up helmets.

There is a horseshoe-shaped table with twenty-four spots at it, separated into twelve little tables. Most of them have two nameplates, but some don't. My section (name on its little gold plaque) only has one, as do Three, Seven and Eight (Beetee, Blight and Woof). There is a completely empty table, which must be District Six. I sit down. Chaff and Seeder aren't here yet, so there's no one between me and the two men at the District Ten table - Earl, who's just sitting down, and another man, who I didn't meet on the tour. Earl introduces him as "Toffy Taggart." I shake his hand.

"You never mind the idiots," he tells me. "Show me one of 'em hasn't made a deal he regrets."

The door opens again, and three more people come in. It must be the District Two mentors - Brutus and Drake are among them, and the third is a woman I don't know - though I can't figure why they have three until Drake whips out a temporary name plate and stomps over to the District Six table. Apparently, he's been assigned as a guest mentor again. Brutus "trips" over my chair leg and gives me a shove. "Nice job," he sneers, and heads over to the District Two table. The woman gives me an apologetic look, but moves on.

At the front of the room, there's a podium. Hadriana Livingston is organizing papers. Her silver hair is pulled up into a tight ponytail, which bounces importantly when she moves her head. She looks up and smiles at me vaguely, then goes back to work. I don't respond to it. If Earl's right, I'll have enough trouble with other mentors thinking I make deals with the wrong people without them knowing that the head Gamemaker rescued me.

The tables start to fill up. I recognize most of the victors from television or my tour. Miracle Brea and Prodigy Waterman from One, Mags Donovan and Henessey Doolin from Four, Tesla Corvin and Faraday Sykes from Five (she gives me a sarcastic little smile, followed by a rude gesture). I recognize the male victor from Nine, but I can't bring his name into my head. The woman is Darla Grimes. Chaff and Seeder come in last. There's a spot on Seeder's shirt that looks like someone's nose was running onto it. She leans down and kisses my cheek quickly, then takes her seat. Chaff sits down beside me, rolls his eyes, and shakes his head.

Up front, Livingston presses a button, and a soft but persistent tone fills the room. The quiet conversations that have been going on come to a quick stop.

As soon as she has everyone's attention, she says, "Welcome back to the Capitol. I'm very glad to see you all. And a special welcome to our new mentor, Haymitch Abernathy of District Twelve."

There is muted, resentful applause.

"There are a few changes this year," Livingston says. "Nothing terribly important - "

"What's this crap about not having any say in the interviews?" Faraday interrupts. "That's strategy - mentor territory."

"And the parade costumes!" Brutus shouts. "My stylists haven't even _consulted_ with me!"

There's a general uproar around the table.

Livingston raises her hands. "Now, I think you're overreacting!" she calls. "Calm down, and let me explain!"

"Who cut a deal with the escorts?"

"No one 'cut a deal' with the escorts!" She lets out an exasperated sigh. "Really, let's not indulge in paranoia. It was decided that the Capitol teams - _not_ just the escorts - would be able to better plan the preliminary events here in the Capitol. They're in a position to place orders with manufacturers, get a feel for the trends on the street here, and judge what will go over with the sponsors, which is the main point of those events. Stylists have taken the lead in planning the parade, and they've been working for several months. Escorts have always been the team leaders on the Capitol side, and they've been responsible for creating District images. They will _not_ be controlling the interviews. They will, as always, coach on etiquette, and they've worked side by side with the stylists. But of course, the mentors will be the ones most involved in working with individual tributes on their interview responses, and Caesar Flickerman insists that he meet with the mentors before the show, as always."

"What did Caesar have to say about it?" Mags asks.

"He is the executive producer of the pre-Games events. I assure you, he was involved in every facet of the decision."

I doubt anyone here, even Brutus, is too stupid to miss that she doesn't say he _approves_. Even the executive producer and head Gamemaker answer to at least one higher authority.

No one makes an argument. Apparently, Caesar's involvement is the last word.

Livingston goes on to describe a few new bits of technology in the viewing center (it's all new to me, of course, so I don't know how anything will be different), thank the catering staff who will be providing us with food, and wish us all luck. After that, she offers a tour of the viewing center to new mentors and anyone else who's interested.

"Any questions?"

Mags raises her hand. "The little girl from Twelve needs a knee brace."

I look up, surprised.

"I would think that would be something the mentor from Twelve can discuss with me," Livingston says.

"He's new. I'm not. Can we get you on record saying that poor little girl won't be trying to totter around on a chariot tonight with a bum knee?"

Livingston smiles a little bit. "You have me on record." She presses a button, and someone asks what she needs. "Please see to it that a knee brace is included with the costume for the District Twelve female tribute."

"On it, ma'am," the voice says.

"Thank you," I say, mostly looking at Mags.

She gives me a real smile, and nods.

While everyone is packing up, I lean over to Chaff. "I need help with the sponsor protocols."

"Don't sweat them too much. It took Seeder five minutes to teach me. Take the tour, and I'll meet you in the bar in the training center after the parade. You can't do much with sponsors until then, anyway."

I go up to the front, where a perky girl in a green wig is waiting to conduct the tour. To my surprise, Drake joins me. No one else comes.

"You need a tour?" I ask as we head out.

"I need to _mentor_ you. Again."

I wince.

The tour guide leads us out of the room and to a waiting car. The Viewing Center is just next door to the Training Center, but I guess they aren't taking any chances. The guide's name is Fausta Furbelow. She is my age, and is just _thrilled_ to have a chance to meet both me and my esteemed mentor. She is still in school, and her favorite subject is fashion and she thinks we're both cuter than actors on television. Do we watch _Seagull Point_? She thinks their latest plot twist may have been inspired by my tragic circumstances. Do I think so? Is it disrespectful? Would I mind if she told her very best friend that she met me, since I was _both_ of their favorite last year? The friend has a poster of me from a magazine in her locker at school, but getting to meet me is so much better. Will I sign her dress later? (At least I hope the word was "dress." I have a sneaking feeling it might have been "breast.")

I don't really have much of a chance to answer any of this, since she skips from one point to another at a constant clip, but she doesn't seem to mind. I see Drake's lips twitching, but I'm not sure if he's trying not to laugh, or trying not to scream.

We enter a huge, stone-walled lobby and take a glass escalator up to the viewing level. This is never shown on television, but it's actually kind of nice. It's a big room, with hundreds of screens lining the walls and coming down from the ceiling. Each of the small screens, Fausta explains, tracks a single camera. Some cameras might not see any action at all, others might pick up a lot. Right now, they're all blank - "No peeking ahead of time!" she chirps - but I think when they're on, it must look like puzzle pieces. Something called a "nano-cam" will also be tracking individual tributes, attached to the trackers, floating along like a mote in the air.

"I had one of those on me?" I ask.

"You sure did. The nano-cams only get a small view - the only final shots that come from them are the close-ups - but they activate the other hidden cameras. I mean, the others are on, of course, but when the nano-cams come near, they notify the Gamemakers, so they can keep the shots clean."

"Wow," I said. "I missed that trick."

Fausta giggles, then takes us around to the individual district tables. Each is equipped with two screens, showing the nano-cam views of the district's tributes, plus a telephone for contacting sponsors. Our escorts will be here to help us field calls and spell us while we sleep. There's a room off to one side with curtained-off beds for us, along with a long buffet table, a bar, and a sitting area with lots of extra televisions and no books.

"Well, that's it!" she says. "I hope you'll both have a good year."

"May we have a minute?" Drake asks.

She grins and shrugs.

"Alone?"

"Oh. Right." She looks at both of us speculatively, then scurries away.

Drake turns me around and pulls me into the area with the beds, finally stopping at a place between two of them, where there's a lot of heavy, sound-absorbing cloth between us and our tour guide. "No more deals," he says.

"I-"

"I get it. Everyone gets it if they think about Glass. But I told you, we've been holding that line for years, and now we lost it."

"I didn't agree to that! I just wanted Glass not to… take advantage of my tributes. We both know there are a few creeps who try it." I raise my eyebrow at him - Drake was on Maysilee last year like a mosquito looking for a place to bite.

"And he tried it with you, didn't he?"

I nod.

"I don't know how Duronda kept not killing him year after year. I really don't. If he was assigned to me, I'd let him live long enough to watch me feed his balls to those damned mutt squirrels, and then I'd throw the rest of him in after them." Drake shakes his head. "Okay, fine. You have a good reason, but do you get it now? If you make deals with the Gamemakers - or Snow, because I have a feeling that's who you talked to - then you're _always_ going to end up paying. And so will the rest of us."

"So what am I supposed to do?"

"No more concessions. End of story. I don't care what they promise you. Why do you think Mags was the one who asked for the knee brace? They'll try and make you make deals for things like that. You can't do it. Don't let them think they can."

"But if I don't, my tributes -"

"-are most likely going to die anyway. And if they don't, it's not going to be because you made some great deal. Do you have the sense that I made any deals for you last year?"

"No."

"No. And I _did_ make a couple to get allies for Berryhill… you saw how well those worked. And you know what else? Those magpie mutts that hit you and Maysilee came out right after I told one of Snow's cronies that I didn't have time for him. Hate me if you want, but you'll need to do the same thing. Your tributes only have a one in twenty-four chance even if everything's fair. But if you let the Capitol use you, then there's a one hundred in one hundred chance that they'll keep doing it. I wish I didn't know that firsthand."

"But you're not doing it anymore?"

He doesn't answer for a long time, then he says, "I don't know, genius. I didn't do it for _you_. Maybe that'll make it easier to not do it for someone else next time, though maybe my tributes this year won't be as obnoxious. We'll see. This is the year they're going to test you out, though. See how tight those puppet strings are, how much they can make you dance. They'll promise you the world. They won't deliver. Then they'll promise payback. That will happen. I can't imagine it'll be any worse than what they've already done to you without you breaking, though. You're a tough kid. I admire that. If you tell anyone I said that, I'll rip your tongue out and make a sandwich of it."

Nothing else seems appropriate to follow this up, so we head out in silence. Fausta is waiting for us with a deliberately empty expression. She asks if I think I'll have time to talk to my fan club. I allow that the schedule looks a little tight.

By the time we get back to the warehouse-like addition to the Training Center called the Remake Center, most of the mentors are in deep conversation with each other or with their escorts and stylists. I guess that, if you have a staff here you can trust, the new system will have advantages, like Livingston said. But I don't trust my escort, and my stylists are scared to death of him. I wonder how many of the other districts are in that situation. From the looks of it, some of the districts are actually pretty chummy with their staff. Beetee is helping his stylist do something with a thin mesh over the cloth of a costume, and, unless I'm reading it wrong, Blight's getting pretty cozy with his new escort. Drake goes off to the District Six area and immediately picks a fight with the stylists. Chaff and Seeder are examining costumes.

I don't see Glass, Lepidus, or Atilia, so I just sit down in a lounge area, bored. I know it's better not to express boredom - the Gamemakers can always cure that, even for mentors, I'm sure - so I try to feign interest in what's going on around me. Most of it is just baffling. Aside from the district teams trying to work together, I see horse trainers running around with whips and harness equipment. Production teams try different lighting settings on the exit, causing a constant, subtle shift in the light inside. Little kids in fancy clothes are running around, offering trays of refreshments to us. I wonder how they draw that duty. There's some kind of set catastrophe, apparently, because production assistants are rushing around, screaming for something called "Glimmer-Glo."

Glass finally shows up with the stylists trailing behind him, and Ginger and Elmer in their wake. I am somehow not shocked to see them done up as sexy miners, though Lepidus acts like he's re-invented the wheel by using black glitter instead of coal dust for decoration. Ginger has the promised knee brace over one long, bare leg.

"I couldn't think of anything to hide it," Lepidus says nervously.

"It's wretched, and not part of the agreed-on costume." Glass sighs. "But the Gamemakers insisted. You know that it will only make her look weak, don't you?" he asks me.

"Have you ever been on one of those chariots?" I ask. "It's hard enough to stand up straight when your legs are fine. How is it, Ginger? All right?"

"Better than since I got shot," she says. "Can I have it in the arena?"

"I'll see what I can do."

"I doubt it will be allowed," Glass says. "It can be used as a weapon, and they'll never send her in with a pre-existing weapon."

"I'll see what I can do," I repeat slowly.

Elmer has been hiding behind her, and when he comes out, I see why. The pants are even tighter than last year, and they've done something that makes him look like he's got a full-grown rooster tucked in his front pockets. He pulls me aside. "I can't go out in public like this," he says. "It's even worse than what they did to you. And we all… you know… laughed. Guess it serves me right now, huh?"

"Elmer, I'd have laughed at me too, if I'd seen me. I can't really do anything about it, though. The stylists get to make the call. At least you'll be inside the chariot. Just… stick close to the front wall of it. Well, as close as you _can_ get, I guess." I grin.

He makes a face, and for a second, we could be back in math class, then he sees one of the chariots being rolled in and goes a pale shade of green under the ridiculous makeup.

I put a hand on his shoulder. "It'll be okay. The parade's nothing. Just stand there and pretend you're just having a bad dream about showing up at school with no clothes on, and you'll wake up soon enough. And you _will_ be inside the chariot, not hanging off it like I was. I bet they don't even notice at home."

"You tell my dad this wasn't my idea, all right? He'll keel over from embarrassment."

"I got Danny Mellark sitting with your dad, so if he keels over, Danny'll catch him and set him right back up. And Danny knows who runs things, too. I've told him plenty."

Elmer looks surprised. "Thanks for thinking about my dad. That was decent of you. I hope dad doesn't say anything bad about… you know. Merchants."

There's no time to continue this conversation, because they're starting to call for the chariots. I can see the other tributes, all of them looking better than Ginger and Elmer. Beetee's got something working on the District Three chariot that makes the seal twinkle like a star, though someone makes him take it off while I'm watching.

There's a lot of activity, then the chariots pull out into the night. I stay behind with the other mentors and watch on the screen. It looks pretty much like it looks from home, though there's a lot more horse manure odor to go along with it here.

Claudius Templesmith gushes about how wonderful the costumes all are this year, with the new rules allowing stylists full control. The audience seems to like them, too. They reach the president and hear the speech (this year, his theme is how we should all be very grateful to the Capitol for its wise leadership), and then it's over.

We get back to the Training Center, which is starting to feel very familiar to me. I can see several mentors already veering off to the lounge (and I can see the twinkling lights of the bar beyond it), but I decide to go up with the tributes. Ginger's leg is starting to bother her again, so I scoop her up and carry her on the elevator up to the twelfth floor. I point out a few things we can see through the clear walls, but I realize somewhere around the fourth floor that she's scared to death of heights. I let her turn her face away and hide her eyes against my chest.

Dinner is scheduled in an hour, which I hope will be enough time to meet with Chaff. I take Elmer and Ginger to their rooms and show them how to use the showers (I figure this will save them some time and let them relax more), then head out, over Glass's protests, to the bar.

Chaff is waiting for me, drinking straight bourbon. "Want me to order you one?" he asks.

"I better not. Glass is up there with them."

"You can just quit like that? That's good."

I think about telling him that my preps have medicine that helps out - if it weren't for the drugs currently keeping my brain under control, I guess I'd be in trouble - but I find that I don't want to tell him how hard it is to stop sometimes. "So… where do I start with the sponsors? Their only chance is hiding, and I have to get them food. I didn't get the part about establishing credentials… I don't have credentials. No one gave me anything."

Chaff laughs. "Give it twenty years and you might need a badge, but you're shiny and new. They'll know who you are. You just call them at the numbers they give and say who you are. Everyone here has those fancy video phones."

"Which I don't know how to work."

"There's one out in the lobby, I'll show it to you."

"Thanks. Look, um… about alliances?"

"Mostly, we wait for training to start that. But I expect you're looking for help for the girl at the Cornucopia?"

I nod.

He nods back and stares at his drink. "Haymitch, I know this is a hard thing to hear, but I don't think you'll find her any allies. I saw you pick her up and carry her. Everyone saw her leaning on you at the reaping. The risk of helping her… I just don't know."

"It's the decent thing to do," I try.

"Decency can get you killed at the Cornucopia, and you know it. It's all about getting away fast. Come on - you didn't stick around to help the little girl last year, did you?"

I shake my head.

"No, and I doubt anyone will do it for your girl this year. I'll tell Dibber - that's my boy this year - that she'll need help, but Haymitch, in good conscience, I can't actually tell him to help her."

"I guess I know that. So, what about regular alliances? How will they work?"

Chaff patiently explains the process to me from the mentors' side. There are informal alliances among tributes all the time, mostly made in the arena, at which point the mentors can choose to make an official alliance, and share resources. There are also formal request processes that are mostly used by the career districts to form a pack as soon as they're off their platforms. It's all a very nice thought, but as I saw with Beech, once they're inside the arena, the tributes can very easily choose to ignore those alliances. "You have to give up the idea that you can control what your tributes do," he says. "I know you think you can, but you can't."

"Aren't I here to help them?"

"Yeah, but the best you can do for them is to give them good advice that they can decide to ignore, and find them sponsors, so you can send them things in the arena."

"Like messages."

"Don't try to send a message. You'll get called out on that for sure. They have to figure it out on their own."

"So, the sponsors. It doesn't look like Twelve has many."

"The ones in the book are usually pretty strict about sticking with the districts they like," Chaff says, "but there are always new people."

"How do I find them?"

"Some of them will find you, on the sponsor phones. Some of them will contact the Gamemakers to set up a meeting - and only a handful of those are the ones you want to avoid. Some of them are perfectly nice people. If you get the other kind, be nice, but don't take anything."

"I already got the lecture on not making an concessions."

"Yeah? Good. Drake finally did something useful. There are miracles left in the world." He finishes his drink and signals for another. "It's another hard truth that you're not going to get a lot of new sponsors this year, because you're going to have to wait until you're free to move around. But once you are, you go out into the Capitol. You meet them. You have a drink with them. Talk to them in the park. Go to the library you always seem to find your way to. Maybe there's someone there. Go to the Mutt Zoo. The museum. Get to know people."

"I'm terrible at that."

"Yeah, well, you're a pain, that's for sure. But it's the only way. Some districts have escorts that can do that sort of thing through the year, but I wouldn't count on Glass for it."

"I have to get rid of him."

"Yeah. Especially now that he's got more power. Grapevine says that Caesar Flickerman wants to clear out the bad seeds, but he's got an uphill battle, so you're going to have to put up with Glass for a while. We've _never_ had the power to do anything about that."

I nod. Chaff finishes his second drink, then takes me out to the lobby to teach me how to use a Capitol telephone.


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter Fifteen**  
Back in the apartment, we have dinner together - Glass ostentatiously supplies liquor, but the medicine is still working, and I ignore it - then watch the parade and the reactions on the street. Elmer is relieved that the cameras didn't spend much time on us, barely enough time for Claudius to patter that "District Twelve's long drought ended last year. Will this year be a repeat?" There's a little time while the camera watches the chariots line up, during which Claudius mentions that Elmer likes math and Ginger has many friends, but after that, we're forgotten. On the street, members of my fan club are reasonably upbeat. An old woman declares Ginger to be "precious" and a few scrawny boys have decided they believe in Elmer.

"Math guys, I bet," he says, looking at least a little pleased. "No one else said they like math."

"Yes, I'm sure that will be a skill of infinite value," Glass snaps.

I glare, but he ignores me. I look back at Elmer. "Use it to calculate maximum distance from the Cornucopia in the minimum time, okay?"

He nods, but I don't think he's listening. Ginger has been at the wine. I decide they aren't going to take any coaching tonight, and send them up to bed. In the morning, I guess I can get them ready for training. I want Ginger to try a few things without the brace, just in case, and to try and make friends with Chaff's tribute. Chaff may not tell him to save her, but nothing can stop me from trying to make him _want_ to save her. If Elmer doesn't find something that he really excels at, I want him to hide whatever he _can_ do, since he'd never survive a strong alliance, and might have an outside chance if he can surprise them all.

"The odds are starting to come in," Glass says. "Would you like to see them?"

"No."

He smiles unpleasantly. "No… you probably don't."

With that, he saunters off to his quarters. I start to head for the mentor's room, but decide to sleep on the couch instead, knife in hand. Deals are one thing. Insurance is another.

I don't end up getting to coach them in the morning. While they're still in the shower, the Gamemakers summon me to a meeting about Ginger's leg brace, which, as Glass predicted, they've determined can be used as a weapon. I try to play dumb and suggest just a sturdy cloth wrapped around her leg. I figure they'll never in a million years buy it, since it would be easier for her to use it as a garrote than to pull the boning out of a good one and somehow use it to attack other tributes. To my surprise, they actually _do_ agree to entertain this notion. I try not to look like I pulled anything over on them… I doubt Ginger will be using it to strangle anyone, anyway.

Livingston is watching me with a kind of interested suspicion. They all seem to have picked it up, and I remember that they've actually been _studying_ my Games all year. They have the look of people who want to sit me down and have a long conversation about something really interesting. Plutarch is hovering around, refilling coffee cups, but he doesn't ask any questions. One of the younger Gamemakers, who has jet black hair and weirdly full lips, is watching me carefully. He looks very familiar.

"This would be a large concession," Livingston says.

"I realize that," I say. "But it's in the interest of the Games. No one in the audience wants to see a little girl with a bad knee just mowed down at the Cornucopia because she can't get off the platform without falling. How would that look?"

This gets one of her funny little smiles. "How, indeed?" She writes something down on a notepad she's carrying. "Well, we'll discuss it further, and let you know our decision."

"Thank you."

"And Haymitch? I look forward to seeing what you'll do with this year's arena."

I nod as politely as I can and say, "Thank you, ma'am." Then I head for the elevator as fast as I can, before anyone can ask any real questions.

It's too late to catch Elmer and Ginger, of course. They are downstairs in the gym by the time I get back. I pick up the handbook from the table where I left it.

"I don't think you need to bother," Glass says. "With the girl's leg brace and the boy's… scrawniness… I think the sponsors will be less than enthusiastic. They're not going to send you money for kids who aren't going to make it past the Cornucopia."

I don't answer him. I take the book into the mentor's quarters. I didn't really peek in here last night, and I'm glad to find that it's equipped with a phone (the written instructions say that it is only for official Games business). Other than that, it looks like the tributes' rooms, only with a few shelves for personal things, since, presumably, I'll be going home and they won't have to clean it out. I scan the biographies of last year's newcomers again, then take a deep breath and punch in the number for Laurentia Hoops. ("Laurentia is fifty-seven years old, single, and the proud 'mom' of three specially bred kittens named Sugar, Honey, and Salt. She loves the nobility of the Games, and was especially proud to sponsor District Twelve last year!")

A wave of bright color flashes in front of me a few times, then there's a click, and it resolves into the face of a surgically altered middle-aged woman. Her skin has been pulled back tightly, and she's wearing a bizarre lime-green wig that goes up to form a circle on top of her head. In the middle of the circle, there's a fake bird on a swing. No wonder Capitol people think the parade costumes are reasonable.

She recognizes me and puts her hand over her heart. "Oh, my! Mr. Abernathy! I'm so honored."

"Well," I say, "I wanted to call and thank you for helping me out last year."

"Yes, of _course_!" She leans forward. "Oh, you poor thing, I was so sorry to hear what happened after the Games."

"Thank you."

"I never sponsored anyone before last year, but you and Maysilee were so wonderful with each other. I wish I could have saved both of you."

Something tries to connect in my head, but doesn't quite make it. Still, I feel it buzzing around my skull as we talk: _I wish I could have saved both of you._ "I wish you could've, too, ma'am. Maysilee was a real nice girl."

"Your accent is so a_dor_able," she says. "I suppose it's not the polite thing to say, but I just _love_ it."

I've never thought much about my accent one way or another, except when Daddy would get frustrated and say (in unknowing, drunken self-parody) that Lacklen and I needed to stop using the local patois, since it made all of us sound like "ignernt rubes." There are certainly a lot of people in Twelve who sound a lot more, well, _Twelve_ than I do, because it mattered to my father that I sound educated. I never tried to cover it up, though. I can't think how it could possibly sound any dumber than a Capitol accent.

Now, though, since it seems to delight Laurentia Hoops, I lay it on as thick as I can, letting the sounds get richer, and using as many localisms as I can possibly squeeze into the conversation. The Games are "pert near" here, and it's a "whole nother" business being a mentor, and Ginger is "down in the knee," and - may Daddy forgive me - I'm "trine t'git the both of 'em red up fer it" now. By the time I'm done, Miss Hoops has vowed the same amount of money she gave last year, to go toward a knee brace if the Gamemakers don't allow Ginger to start with one, or for a dose of painkillers if they do.

"I've had problems with my own knee since I fell on the ice," she confides. "It bothers me terribly when it rains." She sighs. "If the little girl doesn't make it at the Cornucopia, please give the money to the boy, and if he doesn't… if they have allies, pass it along. I want to help anyone I can, rather than just having it go into the till for next year's arena."

"It would be my pleasure, ma'am."

Our business is done, but I feel guilty hanging up. Miss Hoops is obviously lonely and pleased beyond measure to talk to someone, even if it is me. Still, I have to do it. There are more people to talk to.

Not all of them are as happy to hear from me. Hortensia Vane tells me in no uncertain terms that she does not give money to drunkards, and will be sponsoring the sweet little children from District Eight this year, who have a mentor who's always been a beacon of proper behavior. Severina Bottler informs me coolly that she would have been happy to donate to Maysilee as a mentor, but she never had much interest in me, and has had even less since I started acting like a common lout. Innupta Carter starts out interested, but when I tell her that I can't visit her this afternoon, she becomes hostile and vows to donate to District Five, with that nice woman Faraday Sykes, who took her out for tea two years ago.

Most of them are nice, though - middle-aged and old women, for the most part, who seem to see both me and my tributes as the children they never had. One, with the odd name of Tryphaena Buttery, tells me that she wants to donate in my brother's memory. I tell her that I sure wish she could, and Lacklen would appreciate the thought, but that's not allowed. She always wanted a son and loved math before she moved on to what she calls "the ladies' track," and still collects books of math puzzles. She asks me what I think might help Elmer the most.

"Well, ma'am," I say, "I won't know what he'll definitely need in the arena until I see it, but right here and now, if you could message over one of those math puzzle books, I think you'd make Elmer happy for a couple of evenings."

She's delighted to do something so simple that might make a tribute smile. Again, an idea tries to snag in my head. There's something about these women that's not what I expected. Something they're responding to. I don't know how to use it, though, or why I feel like it matters more than most of the things I've done so far. I can't think of any logical way this is going to help me take down the Games machinery.

I get as much money pledged as I can. I'm getting tired, and I'm not cut out for being anyone's confidante. I'm pretty sure that I'll start getting nasty with them soon. I wish I knew someone in the Capitol like Danny, who I could send to talk to these ladies.

On the other hand, if they stop being lonely, they might not sponsor my tributes.

I shake it off. I've hit the end of the list in the book, and I barely have enough for a single gift. If either of them makes it past the Cornucopia, I'm going to need more. I can't really go out and meet anyone - among other things, after spending all morning being nice to people, I feel like hitting the first person I meet - so I'm at loose ends for a little while. I unlock my door and go out. Glass is no longer in the apartment. He's left a note saying that he's gone home. This is a relief, though it does effectively remove any target for potential punching.

I take the elevator downstairs. A few other mentors are in the lobby, where there's a live feed from the gym. No one is really paying attention to it. Earl Bates is having a long conversation with one of the District Nine mentors. Brutus is chatting up one of the boys waiting tables. Seeder is teaching some kind of dance step to Miracle Brea from District One, and while I watch, they switch roles, and Miracle teaches Seeder a step. I guess they have the same talent. Since I can't think of anything else to do - watching the tributes from the worst possible angle while they fumble around the gym the first day is pretty fruitless - I go over and join them. Seeder formally introduces me to Miracle, who couldn't make the Victory Tour banquet.

"Do you like ballet?" Miracle asks.

"Is that what you two are doing? It's pretty."

Seeder smiles. "Did you ever see a ballet?"

I shake my head.

"Well, we'll just have to fix that sometime soon. Do you want to learn the steps we're doing?"

"I don't think it's for me."

Miracle laughs. "No, you really don't seem very balletic. What _is_ your talent, anyway?"

"Are we back on that?"

"It was the talk of the Victory Tour."

"I don't have a talent."

"Sure you don't." Miracle bends to one side, her arm forming a graceful arc above her, then she stands up, wrinkling her nose. She nudges Seeder. "Maris Brinn, two o'clock."

Seeder pretends to gag. "Haymitch, you get behind us. She'll pay no attention to us, but I'll bet she's _dying_ to get her hands on you."

I get behind them, and peek out around Miracle's arm. The woman coming in is not homely by any stretch of the imagination. She's well put-together, and carries herself with easy confidence. Her blond hair is shellacked up into a fan of playing card aces, but otherwise, there's nothing especially bizarre about her. She looks like she's shopping.

Brutus catches sight of her and breaks off his conversation with the waiter.

"Miss Brinn!" he says. "How good to see you!"

"Is the new boy here?" she asks.

Brutus looks a little miffed. "Oh, no, he's a stick in the mud. You wouldn't like him. Can I buy you a drink and tell you about my tributes?"

She sighs and evaluates him with a cool glance. "Well," she says, "you've always been entertaining. I suppose you'll do."

He puts his hand on the small of her back and leads her into the bar, making a few jokes and laughing at all of hers.

"Guess I'm glad Brutus didn't notice me come in," I say.

"Oh, he noticed," Miracle says. "But he's not going to give up Maris Brinn's money until someone else physically rips him out of her… pocketbook."

Seeder nods. "I made the assumption that you're planning other means of getting sponsors."

"Good assumption."

Miracle shrugs and goes back to her dance exercises. "It _is_ a lot of money that he gets. Adamaris Brinn is connected to everyone who's anyone in the Capitol. She might even have more money than Snow, and she just loves finding handsome young men to spend it on."

"Which is why we need to protect our dashing boy hero," Seeder says, and musses my hair. I roll my eyes at her. She reminds me of Mom, except that Mom wouldn't take this in such good humor.

I guess I can't judge Brutus too harshly. I spent the morning giving older ladies exactly what they wanted, too.

On the other hand, my ladies are better quality.

I spend the next forty minutes with Seeder and Miracle. Beetee comes downstairs and joins us after a while, making a nervous joke that he wasn't about to let me monopolize the pretty ladies. The conversation is low-key and adult, and I feel like I'm sitting in at one of my mother's sewing circles. It's not an unpleasant feeling, really, but I know it's not really my conversation.

After a good hour of this, someone calls out "Finally! What's been taking so long?" A big screen lowers against the far wall, and a much better view of the gym comes up. I can see Elmer trying, without much success, to throw a spear. Ginger is showing Chaff's tribute, Dibber, how to light a fire. I'm glad that she thought to do this without any coaching.

"They still haven't got the individual station cameras working," Beetee tells me. "Usually, you can get a much better view of your tributes. I designed it for them, but they tried to reconfigure it without me."

"Serves them right," Seeder says.

Now, mentors start to appear from the bar and wherever else they've been holed up. Drake plants himself on a couch and stares at the screen with growing despair. I don't recognize his District Six tributes outside of their train-track inspired costumes, but I guess they're not among the confident and competent crew that's swaggering around the room.

I spend most of the rest of the afternoon going from mentor to mentor, whoever Elmer is working with at the moment (Ginger, frustratingly, does not leave the fire station, and just gives lessons to whoever comes along). He's trying to make allies, but if he was clumsy at spear throwing, he's abysmal at archery, and catastrophic with a sword. He seems to hit it off with Beetee's tribute, and they spend a lot of time being very bad at everything together. I think of Filigree, sneering last year at the "fodder brigade."

Thinking of Filigree is a mistake. It immediately turns to thinking about our final fight, about the axe sinking into my side, about holding my guts against my body while I forced myself to keep running.

This isn't a pleasant conversation about ballet with my friends. This is the Hunger Games.

But it's also a pleasant conversation about ballet with my friends.

My head starts aching, trying to hold both ideas at once. I want a drink. The medicine is keeping my body from _demanding_ a drink, but it can't stop me if I decide I'm going to drink anyway. It won't stop me from getting drunk if I damned well _choose_ to do it.

On screen, Ginger finally gets up from the fire station at the prodding of the actual attendant, and limps her way over to shelters. I think about the women this morning who refused to sponsor District Twelve because I have shown up drunk in so many places.

I choose, provisionally, to put it off for now.

At night, Caesar runs a recap of last year's Games. We don't see it in the apartment, of course, because it will have clips from home, and tributes aren't supposed to think about home. I find out about it because in the morning, I have a pile of new sponsor calls to return, and Glass manages to actually focus on his real job long enough to set up a handful of meetings. There are two gamblers who want to know if I've figured out the secrets of the arena - they go away disappointed, but make small donations in the hopes that they'll pan out on their bets. There's an old man who makes a quite frank offer of a trade. I take Chaff's advice and am nice to him, but don't take his money. I take a break to shower after he leaves, since he spent the whole meeting with his hand on my thigh. Finally, Emiliana Meadowbrook, the pretty young actress I met on the victory tour, comes in and gives me a sizable donation. "No strings attached," she says, then smiles. "Though if you were freely inclined, I wouldn't _mind_ having dinner with you."

"It's a nice offer," I tell her, "but I better have dinner with my team. They need some mentoring."

"Maybe coffee?"

I take her for coffee, and I actually enjoy her company. I think about asking her on an actual date sometime. She kisses me goodbye when she heads out into a warm rain, and it's definitely the nicest kiss I've had in a while.

On the evening broadcast, Claudius Templesmith shows hidden camera footage of this and wonders if I've "finally" found love again after the tragic losses of both the beautiful Maysilee Donner and "a girl back home" almost a whole _year_ ago. I spend the next hour with the image of Digger roasting on the fence in my head, and when Emiliana calls to apologize profusely, I'm short-tempered and impatient with her. She doesn't revoke her sponsorship, but there are no further offers of coffee, dinner, or kisses in the rain.

Glass takes a great deal of pleasure in telling Elmer and Ginger that I'm going on dates with television stars while they're trying to learn not to die, but, to my surprise, they both shrug it off. Elmer even guesses that it grew out of a sponsorship meeting, and says he sure wouldn't miss a chance to kiss a pretty girl if one came up. I promise no more distractions.

We spend that evening trying to come up with a strategy for their evaluations. Unlike last year, they'll still have regular practice in the morning; meetings with the Gamemakers will come after lunch.

"A good score is good for sponsors," I remind them (probably unnecessarily), "but it's not everything. And it'll make other tributes want to go after you."

"You got a ten," Ginger says. "What did you do?"

"I stole a knife from the Gamemakers' plate and put all the attendants out of commission with it."

"What did Maysilee do?"

"We didn't talk about it after, but she said she was going to do something with sneaking up on them. I guess whatever she did worked. What are you good at, Elmer?"

"Nothing. Did you see me at all? I'm useless at all the weapons stations."

"What can you do at home? Other than math, I mean."

"I'm pretty good at mine safety, but they're not going to give us any charges to blow."

I nod. "I'll think on it. Ginger?"

"I light fires," she said. "It's really all I could do. I _used_ to be able to run fast. But… I can't anymore."

I frown. "You know what? Light them a fire and don't worry about the score. You're not going to be playing by the regular rules, anyway. We just have to get you _away_ from the platform."

"Okay."

I think about mine safety for a little while. It is a lot of explosives handling, which would be extremely helpful if there were ever explosives to handle. There's testing for dangerous gases, and making support structures for the tunnels. "Hey, Elmer, you think you could use stress points to make a good shelter out of anything in there?"

"A shelter? Why would they care about that?"

"You have to do something. Since they're not very likely to have anything really much like a mine, just extrapolate what you know into something different. Make it look complicated. It doesn't even need to be a shelter. Just something that looks complicated and you're good at."

He thinks about it. "They sit up there on a platform. I could shore up under - you know, build a redundant support - then take out the regular supports. It's not _really_ hard, but it would look good."

"Good. Just don't drop them on the floor, much as you'd like to."

This gets a little laugh, at least.

"You also need to start thinking about the interviews."

Ginger shifts uncomfortably. "Mr. Glass said that you weren't allowed to talk to us about that."

"Glass is wrong. I have it directly from the Head Gamemaker that it's strategy, and therefore the mentor's job. So, what do you want to talk about?"

"Shouldn't we try and make people scared of us?" Elmer tries.

"Yeah, they'll be trembling in their boots," I say. "Everyone's scared of the math guy. Come on. Get real. Caesar will help you if you get stuck, but he needs to know what to ask."

I can't budge Elmer from his belief that he needs to answer like a Career to be taken "seriously," but Ginger at least offers up her fondness for commercial jingles. It's not much, but I'm pretty sure no one else up there can sing the entire run of Glam-Hair product commercials. It will be familiar to the Capitol, and kind of funny. Maybe it will help. Elmer is appalled at first, but when I explain it, he becomes panicked, because he doesn't know how to do anything funny, either.

Miss Buttery's math puzzle book comes up in delivery (it's obviously been searched for hidden messages, and some pages have been torn out), and I give it to Elmer to calm him down. He dives into it and starts doing problems. Ginger starts humming her repertoire.

I sit at the table, look at them, and contemplate the plain fact that they are both going to die, probably very badly, in a very short time.

I knock back three drinks and get enough of a buzz to be numb, but without the constant prodding to drink more, that seems to be enough. I go to bed, and wish I could dream of kissing Emiliana, but of course, I don't. I dream of Digger, her flesh melting onto me, her finger falling off like an over-done chicken leg when I move her hand. Maysilee is beside me, covered in blood, and Lacklen is lounging on his bed in my house in Victors' Village, a huge beam impaling him. None of them seem bothered by their situation, no matter how many times I tell them that they're _dead_, and I can't do anything about it. Digger starts humming commercial tunes.

Sitting through the evaluations the next afternoon is the most stressful thing I've had to do (so far), mostly because I'm not allowed to go down and give them any last minute advice, and I can't even see what they do. I sit with the other mentors in the lounge, all of us snapping irritably at each other and the Games staff. As District Twelve, my team is the last to go. Glass spends the half hour of the tests taunting me about how unprepared the kids are.

I see Elmer go up in the elevator, then, finally, Ginger. I head up to join them.

Ginger is sitting on the floor, weeping uncontrollably.

I look at Elmer.

"She couldn't get the fire to start," he says quietly.

Ginger doesn't acknowledge or nod or say anything. She just continues weeping in huge, braying sobs until she finally cries herself to sleep on the floor.


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter Sixteen**  
Elmer scrapes out a seven somehow, right around the average. He says he ended up not trying to do the redundant support system he'd talked about because there was no really reliable way to remove the original supports. Instead, he built a little shelter, like a fort he and a friend once made on the Seam. He was talking about it with Beetee's tribute, Ikris.

Ginger gets a one. Caesar Flickerman, mercifully, doesn't give anyone time to dwell on it, going swiftly to filler coverage with the stylists. Ginger herself has been sitting listlessly on the couch, her face puffy from crying. When the score comes, she just leans over, buries her face against a red pillow, and feigns sleep.

"Well," Glass says, "I doubt we could have expected anything else. She was always the sacrifice, anyway."

I stand up. "You should get home and get some sleep, Glass."

"I don't - "

"_Now_."

"We need to begin preparations for the interviews."

"That's what tomorrow is for. Go home."

"You don't want them to realize the truth, do you? They're both fodder for stronger tributes, just there to bump up someone's kill count."

"My kill count is three," I say. "So far."

He straightens up. "What are you suggesting?"

"That if you don't get home now of your own accord, you're going to have a tragic accident."

"You are not permitted to threaten me."

"It was a warning. You just never know what might happen. Get out of here."

For a second, I think he's going to stay out of stubbornness, but he turns slowly and goes to the elevator. I don't turn my back on him.

"They're both dead, Abernathy," he says when the door opens. "You know they are. _They_ know they are. There's little point to pretending." He goes into the elevator, and the door shuts him out.

I look back at my tributes.

Elmer sits down beside Ginger and puts his hand on her shoulder. She shudders, and he starts to get up to leave her alone, but she suddenly sits up and throws her arms around him, clinging to him miserably.

He looks more terrified by this than by the Games, but he comforts her as well as he can.

I leave them alone. When it comes to this kind of thing, I don't even know where to start.

In my room, I lie awake, staring at the ceiling. I try to guess at the arena. There was no climbing equipment that I could see in the basement, so there may not be trees. That's all I can really guess. So much for my brilliant insights. I can't think of a good way to hide them if there aren't trees.

There've been a few arenas that aren't in forested areas. Beetee's was a mock-up of a bombed out city, with scorched metal girders reaching to the sky. That's how his electrocution trick worked. He used the scrap metal and the battery from a piece of abandoned machinery that he'd been sleeping in. (He'd also used it to drive over an attacker earlier on, which might have been the first time the Gamemakers were ever surprised - I was little, but I remember Daddy shouting, "Woo-hoo, they didn't expect that!" They'd been using it remotely, sort of like a mechanical version of a mutt.) There was a wide, sandy desert once, I think. I caught a glimpse of it last year in the school library, when I was the only one in my year not obsessing over the idea that I was likely to be reaped.

The only one except Elmer. Elmer tried to explain to everyone that the odds weren't changing that much. Say there are ten thousand reaping cards. Each one has a one in ten thousand chance of being picked in the first drawing. In the second drawing, there are nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine. So instead of having a chance of one in ten thousand, you have a chance of two in nineteen thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine. See how probability shows that no one individually is in much more danger?

But it's always _someone_. I'll never have to work the odds again. I know the odds from my end.

Elmer will never work the odds again, either, unless there are some probability problems in Miss Buttery's puzzle book, or it turns out that there's some kind of afterlife after all, and he spends it happily at his numbers, while Gilla tries on clothes and Maysilee plays her guitar and Beech tries, in his earnest, clueless way to make friends with everyone. I try to believe it, but I can't.

I get my mind off this track. It's true, but it's not useful. So, there's been a city. A hot desert. I imagine there are cold deserts, too. Icy places (though neither of the tributes mentioned stations teaching them to keep warm, so it's probably not one of those). There are prairies and swamps. I remember seeing a picture once of a kind of land far up north, where there are a lot of moss-covered rocks, almost frozen dirt, and not much else. I don't remember what it's called.

And what's the point? The Gamemakers can make whatever they imagine. My arena didn't look like anything in the real world, though I could imagine a great adventure novel taking place on some deserted island that looked like it, except that the characters probably wouldn't be killing each other there. For all I know, the Gamemakers are going through some kind of literary phase. The Cornucopia will be set on a round table, and they'll all be fighting dragons in a medieval castle. They'll make something that looks like a space colony, and occasionally, the air will go toxic. Maybe they'll all be on rafts, floating along on Gia's Mississippi.

That would be the best for Ginger, if she can swim. Her knee won't have to support her. I don't know if she can swim, though.

I close my eyes finally and go to sleep. I dream that I'm sitting in the cemetery, begging the stones for help. They don't talk. I have a pile of playing cards, a lot more than a single deck. All of them show different kinds of arenas I've imagined, from desert to glacier to fantastical fairy tale land. When I look up, all of the other mentors also have fans of cards in their hands. They're laughing.

"What's the matter, genius?" Drake asked. "A hundred percent as dumb as the rest of us now?"

I look down at my cards. The suits start to appear in the corners - an ice cube for freezing, a skeleton for starving, a dripping sword for fighting, and a scythe for crazy things like volcanoes and floods. I stare at them. The values don't make sense. Nothing makes sense. I don't know how to play this game. I toss them aside. The cards are backed in black, with a picture of Maysilee's mockingjay pin.

I open my eyes in the darkness. I don't know how long I've been drifting and dreaming.

_What are you trying to tell yourself?_ Mom asks in my head.

I press the heels of my hands against my eyes and try to think. Images of the Games keep trying to break in.

Why did Drake ask me if I was as dumb as everyone else? What am I not doing that the others aren't doing, either?

What _wasn't_ I doing? , I realize. I'm doing it now. I haven't heard any of the others even speculate about the arena. They all think they can just use a blanket strategy.

And the cards, the suits. All of the different things fall into a few categories. Cold. Lack of food or water. Disasters. Violence. All of them are in every arena, of course, but some kinds of arenas lend themselves more to one than the others. There are different types of _conditions._ A limited number.

They'll never start right off with a disaster. That would bore the audience. So I'll have time to study whatever the arena is to figure out what kinds of disaster might be waiting. But if I see that it's cold, I can prioritize to get my tributes warm. If water's a problem, I'll shift that to finding and leading them to water. I'm not sure how, since you can't talk to them, but maybe I can work the gifts, if I can figure out how to make them understand. Small arenas tend to be quick and constantly violent. Hiding places and weapons to try and defend themselves.

I take a few deep breaths. This is something like a workable plan, or at least I convince myself that it is. I feel my heart slow down a little. If I break things down into workable bits, I can handle it when they get into the arena.

The problem is getting them past the Cornucopia. I can't think my way through it, and Chaff's right - I can advise them all I want, but I can't control them.

I close my eyes and see the backs of the cards, the gold mockingjay repeating over and over. What game am I really playing?

There's no chance of going back to sleep, so I go back out to the sitting area. Ginger and Elmer are both still out here, asleep on the couch. I try to put a blanket over them, but it wakes Elmer up. He wakes Ginger, and they both head blearily to their rooms.

I feel like I should have something comforting to say to them, but I don't.

I turn on the television. Glass is expounding on Ginger's poor score and my bad mentoring skills (after all, he says, I hardly won the Games on _skill_ myself, so I can hardly be expected to confer it on others). He seems to be chummy with the District Nine escort. The reporters head for local clubs, where they find several victors who aren't mentoring this year. They are extremely drunk. I wonder, if I had half a dozen other victors in the Village at home, if I'd bother coming at all.

I guess I would. Whatever else is true about my life now, there's one thing I can't deny: It's all about the Games. The images of the arena and the Capitol are never much further away from my mind than images of tall, glimmering bottles of warm-colored liquor. Winning the Games seems to mean that I belong to them, and the worst part is that no one needs to enforce this. It just _is_.

After the late night Games coverage and before the early morning news (which will undoubtedly have a lot of Games coverage), they run television shows and movies. I sit through two short comedy shows. The first is about a maintenance worker who constantly manages to cause mishaps in the lives of the rich residents of his building (but they love him anyway, and the problems are fixed at the end). The second is about a Capitol high school, and the shenanigans of a girl who's brainy by day and wild and crazy at night. Or maybe she has a twin. I'm not really clear on the concept. When these are over, I guess the publicity over the kiss has made Emiliana interesting, because they run a movie she made when she was a kid, before _Seagull Point_ came up. She's a skinny little girl, all big hazel eyes and wavy brown hair. The movie is exquisitely awful. She plays the daughter of a traitorous Avox who is given a chance to attend a proper Capitol school, and learns to behave like a true citizen. She finds her mother's rebellious plans and turns them in - along with her father - and is ultimately "adopted," in a manner of speaking, by the school, now free of the bad influence of her parents' ideas. There's a strong implication that, so freed, she will now be able to achieve greatness. According to the announcer, it won several awards.

I think again about the cartoon I saw in District Twelve, where no child was ever told to tell his or her parents anything, or seek their help. Then I think about the lonely old women who want to take care of Ginger, Elmer, and me, but never had children of their own. I wonder what the families here are really like. I've met _people_ here, but I've never met a Capitol family, or if I have, I haven't recognized it.

I don't know why this keeps occurring to me. I'm not out to save the Capitol.

I finally fall asleep again before the morning news starts. I'm woken up a couple of hours later by Glass returning.

He tries to claim that he's responsible for all of the prep, and I ought to find it in my interest to go to the nearest bar. I call his bluff and threaten to call in the Gamemakers.

He wrinkles his nose. The little gemstones embedded in his facial tattoo gleam in the light. "Very well," he says. "But I do wonder how well your good friends downstairs would take it if they knew how heavily you rely on the Gamemakers for protection."

I don't bother answering. If they could figure out on their own that my action in making a deal with Snow to keep my tributes safe somehow ended up with them losing control of the pre-Games, I think they've probably realized by now that, for the moment, the Gamemakers think I'm their funny little pet. I don't see any of them being likely to turn down an advantage like that.

"You stick to the etiquette," I tell him. "Don't make Ginger cry; she's nervous enough. And please ask Lepidus not to put her in heels."

"Her dress will not fall properly if she's not in heels."

"That's a tragedy, I'm sure."

Ginger and Elmer come down, and we all have breakfast together. I decide to put Ginger with Glass first, so that I can pick up any pieces that need picking up after it.

I take Elmer into the interview practice room. I remember Drake pacing around me last year, glaring at me. I think I understand that now. I like Elmer all right, but he's been around my whole life, and I probably only learned his name after five years of school. He's going to have three minutes to get the rest of the country to really learn it. His personality was never going to be the life of anyone's party. He's very earnest and he means well about everything, but he's stodgy, and lacks any real sense of humor. I have no idea how to package him, and I hate myself for turning him into a product. I'm guessing that hate is coming out in my face, judging by Elmer's sudden and valiant - but doomed - attempt to sit up straight and look confident.

I wave it off. "Don't look scared," I say. "But don't try to look like you're posing for a statue in City Center, either."

"So… what do I do?" he asks. "I figured the time. The boy from Twelve is always last, so I'll be sitting up there for an hour and nine minutes before it's even my turn. They pan the camera around sometimes."

"It'll probably be closer to an hour and a half by the time Caesar does his patter and introductions," I say. "The camera might spot you, but unless you're doing something really bad, it won't linger."

"What's really bad?"

"Well… if Lepidus sticks you in tight pants again and you sit there trying to pick the cloth out of you, they'd probably focus on that."

"Yeah, I wasn't planning on doing that."

"Don't do it without thinking about it, either." I sigh. According to my schedule, I'll be meeting with Caesar tomorrow morning during their prep time. I'll have to give him something to talk to them about. "What do you want to say?"

"What _should_ I say?" He leans forward, elbows on his knees. "I think I'm stronger than a few people. And you talked about being smart. Should I?"

"No. Definitely not. I was being a smart-ass. I don't think people would buy it from you."

"I could talk about knowing how to blow things up. We won't have anything that explodes, but maybe it would sound intimidating."

"Don't try intimidating."

"What, then?"

"Who are you?"

"_What?_"

I shrug and sit down. "You've got three minutes. Tell me who you are."

"Um…"

"Actually, let's make that ten seconds. You'll have three minutes to talk to Caesar, but I want you to tell me five things in ten seconds about who you are."

In a movie, this would work. In reality, Elmer just blinks at me slowly and opens and closes his mouth a few times. Finally, he says, "Um… I'm Elmer Parton. I'm seventeen. From, uh, District Twelve. I like math. My father's name is Dorsel." He looks at me hopefully.

I shake my head. "Do you have a pet or something?"

He doesn't have a pet. His mother died when he was very little, and he doesn't remember her. His father wouldn't like to be talked about. "Family stays in the family," he says, horrified, when I ask. I guess I deserve this. I wouldn't talk about my family business, either. That's not the way things are done in District Twelve.

He doesn't have a girlfriend, and completely refuses to discuss anyone he might have a crush on, even with me. His best friend is a girl, Callamae Stubbs. They do their homework together. But she has a boyfriend, so he can't talk about her, because then her boyfriend would have the wrong idea.

"Elmer, come on, you have to give me something. Everyone had the wrong idea about me and Maysilee last year - hell, most of them still do - but Digger never held that against me."

"I don't want to talk about personal stuff. Who'd care about my personal stuff anyway? I'm nobody."

"You're not nobody."

"Then how come you have to ask who I am? You tell me who I am. You've known me since we played soldiers together out on the Seam."

"We played soldiers?"

"Yeah, when we were about six. Your dad told us a big war story, and we played at it."

"I don't remember that."

"I do," he says. "I had fun. Maybe I could talk about that. You're last year's victor - maybe they'd think it was interesting."

I don't like it especially, but it's not against the rules. One of Beetee's boys talked about _him_ at the interviews last year. And since Elmer refuses to talk about anything else in his life, I guess I have to go with it. He either remembers or makes up several times we played together when we were kids. I tell him to run with it. I'll see if Caesar buys it if I play it straight in the pre-interview meeting. We zero in on playing soldiers, and decide that he won the war against me - beating a victor might be of note - and maybe a time when we were twelve that he helped me in math class.

It's not going to be a memorable close to Caesar's show, but he's right. Maybe people will like it. And maybe they'll think for two seconds that the kids in the arena are real people with real lives, and that this might actually hurt.

Not that they'll care.

I send him out and call for Ginger. Glass hasn't made her cry, but I think it's a close thing. Against my order, he has her limping around in heels with no knee brace. I tell her to get the shoes off and I lob them out into the parlor, where Glass is starting to teach Elmer how to sit in a way that won't embarrass him.

Ginger collapses into the chair.

"Let's hear those commercials," I say.

She shakes her head. "Why?"

"Because it's cute, and people will remember it."

"So what? I'm _dead_, Haymitch. Who cares if a haunt can sing?"

"You're going to have three minutes to fill. What are you going to do with them…?"

It's a fight with Ginger, right to the end. She doesn't want to sing. She doesn't want to be cute. She doesn't want to be defiant about her score. She doesn't want to talk about what happened to her knee. She doesn't see the point in talking about anything and having people _look_ at her, when she's just going to die anyway.

I finally get her to consider singing her jingles by telling her that Caesar's a good guy, and she wouldn't want to leave him twisting in the wind for three minutes. I know this will work, because that's life on the Seam. You might ignore a lot of things or do a lot wrong no matter how many people tell you it would be good for you to shape up, and you might be a flat out lowdown skunk … but you don't leave people who are counting on you twisting in the wind, at least not when their needs have been stated and made completely clear. Ginger will have lived with this cheek and jowl since she learned to talk, same as I did, and I use it as an unbeatable weapon against her.

Great. She's not even in the arena, and I already broke her.

After a somber dinner, Glass goes out with other escorts, and I go back to my room and take a long, scalding shower at the harshest setting I can find.

I see the team at breakfast, then Ginger and Elmer are swept off for interview prep. Glass, much to my disgust, insists on staying and overseeing it personally. I am met by a car downstairs and driven to a steel and glass tower just a few blocks away. It's the headquarters of Panem National Television, and Caesar's office is on the top floor.

His secretary doesn't look much older than I am. She's a pretty girl with a toothy grin not altogether unlike Caesar's own. Her nameplate identifies her as Ampere Flynn, and when I come in, she breaks herself away from a chummy-looking conversation with the youngest of the Gamemakers, the one I thought looked familiar in our earlier meeting.

He smiles. "Hi, Haymitch," he says. "I'm Martius Snow. We met at headquarters, but I don't think we were introduced."

I shake his proffered hand, but I let go as quickly as I can. Now I recognize why he looks familiar. He's the president's son. He's never on television and I can see why. It would be too strange. People say I look like my Daddy, but I've got nothing on Martius Snow. He doesn't just look related to the president. He looks like the president used a time machine and brought a younger version of himself forward.

Martius laughs softly. "Sorry about that," he says. "I don't take offense at it anymore. I'll be sitting in on the pre-interviews today."

The girl presses a button and says, "Are you ready for Twelve?"

Caesar Flickerman's voice comes back, as jovial as ever. "Send Mr. Abernathy straight in, Peri. That is, if young Mr. Snow is ready to be pried away from your desk."

Martius makes a great show of tearing himself physically away from the secretary's desk. "Parting is _such_ sweet sorrow!" he croons. The resemblance to his father doesn't go away, which only makes seeing him flirt outrageously with Peri Flynn more disturbing.

She flicks him on the nose and waves him toward the office. "Don't mind Martius," she tells me. "He's only a _little_ bit crazy, and if you can get past his obvious flaws, he's almost tolerable."

I go into Caesar's office. He looks up with a friendly smile - nothing like his showman's smile - and indicates a big, comfortable-looking chair for me, then upends a wastebasket for Martius to sit on. This is met with a little good-natured hamming. I have no idea what to make of it.

No one explains.

"It's always good to see you, Haymitch," Caesar says. "I suspect we have a lot to talk about."


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter Seventeen**  
I'm not sure where to start, and Caesar doesn't prompt me, so I just look at Martius Snow. "I haven't heard yet about a knee brace."

"There are a few Gamemakers still on the fence," he says. "I'm not one of them, so you don't need to convince me. The issue is whether or not she can use it as a weapon."

"_I_ could use it as a weapon," I admit. "But Ginger won't think of it. And even if she did, the second it came off, she wouldn't be able to move very well to use it."

"I'll pass it along. Again." Martius sighs. "You know she's most likely not going to get far."

"Yeah, well, that's thanks to your father's Head Peacekeeper in Twelve shooting her in the knee for no good reason."

He grimaces. "Unfortunately, I can't do anything about what my father decides to do. Which includes Glass, if you're planning to ask."

"I was."

"Well, they're old cronies, back to their school days."

"Yeah, I know," I say. "Glass told me all about how they were in the Green Tower together."

"It was a binding moment for everyone who was there," Caesar says, looking out his window with a grim expression. "And I'm afraid Coriolanus has used it heavily over the years to keep a core group bound to him."

I look around, uncomfortably wondering if the office is bugged or if I'm being tested somehow. I choose to say nothing.

Caesar abruptly smiles, the grimness fading away, the talk show friendliness emerging. "So, we know that Ginger has a bad leg, but I don't imagine that she'll want to talk about that."

"No. Not really. She's…" I sigh. "She's really pretty broken about the score. You made Gilla feel better last year. Could you…?"

"Done," he says.

"Thanks. She…" I bite my lip. "This sounds stupid now that I'm saying it, but she knows how to sing a lot of commercial jingles."

"Ha!" Caesar sits back. "I love it. That'll get people laughing. People who are laughing remember who made them happy. What about the boy?"

I decide to try playing it straight, saying that Elmer and I have been friends for years, but before I'm through three sentences, Caesar's eyebrow is raised. I stop. "Not a good angle?"

"Good enough angle for the show, but you can tell me when it's an angle. I won't call him on it, but it helps me to know how far to push for details if I know there _aren't_ any details."

"Oh, right."

"Are you sure he won't talk about his family?"

"Yeah. He wanted to keep them private."

"Anything else?"

I think about it. "Well… if he tries to steer toward anything about mine safety classes, please steer him away. He wants to talk about explosives, which I'm pretty sure there won't be any for him to worry about knowing how to use."

"I think it would be within parameters to confirm that," Martius says. "It's not exactly radical news."

Caesar nods. "I can work with that. We can get three minutes about how his mentor is an old school friend, and three for Ginger just talking about commercials. You may even get her a corporate sponsor out of it."

"Thanks." I think about it. "Oh - could you let Ginger kick off the high heels that Glass will put her in? I'll make sure she's got her knee brace."

"He was going to put the child in heels?" Caesar grinds his teeth. "Don't worry. I have enough power to take care of _that_, at least. As for things outside of the interviews - has anyone taught you to work the sponsors in the Viewing Center?"

"Well, Chaff taught me to use the phones. I've made contact with most of last year's sponsors… did you get my filing?" I ask, looking to Martius.

"All in order, and nice work keeping new sponsors. A lot don't stay on from year to year."

"Miss Hoops actually sent me a message to tell me how sweet you were to her," Caesar adds.

I blush. "They're nice ladies."

"It's an interesting demographic. You'll be getting more calls during the Games. Glass will be there to record and -"

"No."

"What?"

"I don't want Glass talking to my sponsors. He'll say something rude."

Caesar looks down at his folded hands, then glances at Martius. "Why don't you take Peri to lunch?" he suggests. "We're done with the interview prep. Everything I want to talk to Haymitch about is more… production related than Games related."

Martius nods deferentially and leaves without questions.

"How bad is it?" Caesar asks me.

"Well, he's been forbidden to touch me or my tributes. So, there's that."

"I know about that. Good move. I'm sure the other victors were annoyed, but honestly, I'm glad someone put a leash on that psychopath. Unfortunately, he and the others in Snow's circle are quite influential. I am _trying_ to get rid of him, but it's not easy. He'd have to do something to actually infuriate Snow, at this point. The best I can do is try to contain him. What's he doing?"

I tell him about the threatened beating on the train (and that I think it might not have just been a beating he was threatening), and about the bullying of the tributes, and about what I've heard he said to bereaved parents before I became a victor. "I was lucky to get Gia last year. She was nice to the Donners and the Berryhills. Gilla didn't have a family to be nice to. But she would have been. Now Glass is back, and I don't want him being the one to talk to the families."

Caesar looks at me sharply. "Haymitch, you are turning out to be a very good mentor."

"Let's see if they live first. I mean, if one of them can…"

He comes around the desk and puts a hand on my shoulder. "You know it's not likely. Only one mentor every year has a victor, and that doesn't mean the others aren't good mentors. All you can do is your best, and from what I'm seeing, I think that, with time, your best will be extraordinary."

"It's not going to matter to Ginger and Elmer."

"Maybe not in terms of saving them. And I know - for you there's nothing but pain. But for them… they have someone from home with them at the end, someone who will actually care. You missed having that last year, because of Duronda's passing, but your tributes will have you."

"Gia cared about us."

"So did Drake, I think, though you'd be hard-pressed to get him to admit it. He's certainly one of your biggest fans _now_. But neither of them was going to be going back to Twelve to remember you to your families, to know the things you knew. It makes a difference, even when you don't feel like it does. And you, especially, make a difference, because you put yourself between them and Glass. They know it."

"What can I do about Glass?"

"Not a lot. But keep doing what you're doing, and I'll keep looking for a way to get rid of him. If any of your other team members leave, I'll make sure to hire people who are more your type to replace them. Eventually, we'll wear Glass down, I hope."

This seems to be the best he can give. He gives me a few last pointers for Ginger and Elmer, then dismisses me.

It's ten-thirty in the morning, and their prep is pretty much just starting. I don't have anything on the schedule, so I sign out at the Training Center main desk, put on a tracking bracelet so they know where I am, and head out into the Capitol.

It's a beautiful day, with bright sunlight and a slight breeze to keep things cool. The candy-colored towers of the Capitol sparkle, throwing flashes of light onto the ground. People are going about their business, whatever it is. I'm not sure where I'm going, so I just let my feet carry me where they will. I stop for a little while in a tiny art gallery, where a strange woman wearing clothes supposedly "inspired by traditional district patterns" (she doesn't say which district) is proudly displaying decorative nets, with embedded glass fish that she's made herself. She is very interested in what traditional arts there are in Twelve, and I'm a little sorry to tell her that I can't think of any. Undeterred, she asks about music. I don't sing, but promise I'll get her the lyrics to some of our ballads. She is thrilled with this, and says she will draw illustrations of them in real coal dust.

She agrees to sponsor Elmer if he needs something, as long as I buy "natural" materials for him.

After the gallery, I go to the long parkway between City Circle and the national library. There are children out playing, and I even see a few parents chatting amiably on park benches. I guess there _are_ families, then. I go sit with a young couple, Trajan and Tullia, who are watching their little girl, heavily wrapped up in protective gear, trying to climb a set of monkey bars. They seem like normal parents, if really rich ones. They say they can't be sponsors because they're still on their five year "Family Leave," which means their income from the government is pretty strictly controlled. They're both looking forward to going back to work when their daughter, Livilla, goes to school. Tullia is an architect. She tries to point out one of her buildings, but I can't spot it in the skyline. Trajan is a music teacher at one of the schools, though he'll have to transfer, since Livilla will be attending the school he used to teach at, and apparently, that's against the rules. I mention that plenty of the teachers in Twelve have kids who go to the school. They smile fondly at this strange, rustic custom.

"Here in the Capitol," Trajan says, "we like to make sure that our children aren't trapped into a hereditary point of view."

I nod sagely, though I can't think of a more brain-locked bunch than the Capitol, and tell them that I want to get on to the library. We part on friendly terms.

I keep walking up the parkway, a part of me wondering if I'll see the little boy whose sister was secretly named after Maysilee (her real name is Marcelina). I don't, and I don't remember which house they came from. They've probably moved on to some other fad by now anyway, and are no longer calling the baby by an almost-forgotten tribute's name.

Instead of going all the way to the library - I'm enjoying being outside - I turn down another street, where a decorative fence runs along the length of a full-sized park. I go in when I find a gate, and find myself on a flagstone plaza, surrounded by people pushing carts laden with all varieties of food. I buy something that smells good and comes wrapped in absorbent paper (I imagine people at home would be shocked at the waste, but I don't care), and I sit down on an ornate little bench made to look like branches with giant leaves coming out of the back. Nearby, old men are playing chess on permanently set-up boards. I'm trying to figure out the best approach to them when I hear someone call, "Haymitch!"

I look over. Chaff and Beetee are sitting at one of the boards, playing with chessmen they've obviously made for themselves or had specially made. Chaff's are made from corn husks, like the leaf dollies little girls sometimes play with on the Seam. Beetee's are made from electronic circuits, and light up when he moves them.

I take a chair from one of the little tables strewn around, and settle at the middle of the board. "You always come here?"

"Try to," Chaff says. "Usually, prep day is the best day of the Games. Nothing's gone wrong yet, and there's nothing we have to do."

"So we make a habit of coming out here," Beetee says. "I paged your apartment to see if you'd like to come, but your escort told us that you were already out. Your meeting with Caesar?"

"Yeah. Did you already have yours?"

"Oh, yeah," Chaff says. "You're Twelve. You're last in line for everything."

"I'm a little worried," I admit.

"Don't. Caesar will make them all seem like stars."

"I'm not so sure," Beetee says. "Ikris may do well. He's a personable boy. But Wiress - my girl - isn't really good at conversation."

Since I don't remember anything about Beetee's female tribute at the reapings or the parade, I guess she must be something of a shrinking violet. "Shy?"

He frowns. "Not _shy_, per se. I volunteer to advise an invention club at the school. She's one of my brightest students, but she's a little odd. She tends to focus in on the technical, and forget that she's having a conversation. I told Caesar to watch for her going glassy. It can be off-putting to people who don't know her." He looks at the board and moves his knight. Lights leap around on the base. "By the way, Ikris wants to take care of her in the arena, so I'd like to add her to the alliance with Elmer. Do you mind? Her oddness isn't going to slow them down."

"Fine with me. If Ginger…if she makes it past the Cornucopia…"

"Of course, yes, certainly," Beetee says absently, but doesn't offer to help her get away.

"You might want to ask him about his sponsor situation," Chaff says. "That's one of the major points of formal alliances."

I look at Beetee. "Um… how's your sponsor situation?"

"I've spent a lot of time streamlining electronics and communications systems here in the Capitol," he says. "I know a lot of well-heeled businessmen, and they're loyal sponsors. Which Chaff knows."

"The point isn't what I know," Chaff says. "The point is making sure Haymitch knows what he ought to be doing. I never said you wouldn't check out." He moves a bishop quickly, then says, "Check in three. You think of anything about the arena, Haymitch?"

I lean in. "No trees. There was no training for climbing."

Chaff wrinkles his nose. "Have you thought of a way around that?"

"Not yet."

"Well, get thinking!" He smiles.

"He's my ally, not yours," Beetee says. "Go hire your own brains."

"But they won't come with those big spending old biddies of Haymitch's."

"Hey - you leave those ladies out of it. They're nice."

"Oh, what's this? Sir Haymitch in the shining armor?"

"Shut up."

"Maybe you and he can work something out to set them up with your funny old chess buddies," Beetee suggests, nodding toward the other tables.

"Don't you start on my funny old chess buddies, Volts."

"He's just jealous," Beetee tells me. "He thought he had a lock on the sponsors-no-one-else-thinks-to-ask demographic."

We all laugh.

"You're surprised, aren't you?" Chaff asks. "I know I was."

"Surprised at what?"

"How many of them are nice."

"I'm surprised when _anyone's_ nice," I say.

"But it's not what you expect, in the Capitol. The way things are out in Eleven, the last thing I expected was to like people here."

I think about this. "I don't know. I guess I didn't really know anything. So… you know, I didn't expect anything."

Beetee looks up. "Really?"

"Well… yeah." I look between them. "Don't you guys think it's weird when they ask about your arena strategy before you see the arena?" They don't answer. "It's the same thing. If you go in expecting something and it doesn't turn out to be that, it takes too long to re-think it. So I try not to expect things."

"I thought you'd be predicting it all year, the way you like to control things."

"Yeah - even I'm not crazy enough to think I can control the Gamemakers." I watch a set of moves. "Anyway, what's the point?"

"It's something to do," Beetee says. "You'll get very bored during the year."

"That's why I drink."

Chaff laughs. "You know, I think you _think_ you're kidding." He waits for Beetee to make a move then quickly moves a pawn in his way. "I'm about to wipe the floor with His Brilliance. You up for the next game?"

"I didn't bring my chessmen."

"You can use mine," Beetee says. "You should make some out of coal or something. It passes the time."

"That would get pretty messy," I say. "And I'm not artistic."

"Me, either," Chaff says. "My momma made this for me. She said she never could think of anything to give me after I got rich, so she bought fresh corn and made me a set. She was pretty bored, too… at least until I turned nineteen and they made her go back to the fields." He grimaces at one of Beetee's moves, slides a knight over, and says, "Checkmate."

Beetee groans.

I move into his seat, reset the board, and start the game. Chaff wins in the end, but not until we've mostly wiped each other out. He apologizes to his little faceless pawns when he puts them back in their box. By this time, a lot of his "little old chess buddies" have gathered around to watch. Their thin skin, surgically stretched back to free it of wrinkles, makes their heavily decorated eyes look huge. Most of them wear dark colored wigs, but I doubt they're fooling anyone except maybe themselves. If one of them is a day under seventy, I'm a saint.

"Eighty, more like," Chaff says, laughing, as we head back toward the Training Center. "Can you believe that? I never saw so many eighty year olds in my life."

I haven't, either. Eighty is almost unheard of in District Twelve, though I think Danny's great-grandfather might have still been kicking around when we were kids. I seem to remember an ancient man, anyway, who all the kids called "Grandy-Peet." He used to sit out on the bakery porch in a rocking chair, a blanket over his legs even in summer, and sometimes he'd tell stories about "olden days," when he was a boy, or even more olden days that _his_ grandfather had talked about (and probably they were second-hand stories heard from even before then) about when the Irish escaped the rising sea and the plague, and took root in the tough out-districts of the land that would become Panem. My father used to swing me by sometimes, always with a bottle of something for Grandy-Peet, to listen to the stories. He got a kick out of them, though he didn't believe most of them really happened. This didn't bother him. ("No story ever suffered from a good sprinkling of horseshit," he told me. "It adds flavor.")

When we get back to the Training Center, there's no time for more talking. The kids are done with prep, and it's time for the final push before the interviews. Glass is furious with me, because Caesar has overridden both him and his stylist, forcing them to put Ginger in her brace and sending over a pair of prettily embroidered flat slippers for her to wear with the glittering black dress Atilia has her in. Apparently, while I was playing chess in the park, Caesar flatly ordered that the comfort of the tributes at the interviews was to be respected. Along with Ginger's brace and flats, I guess this also provided glasses for the boy from Nine, and - judging by the fit a stylist is throwing when we go down - lining under a sheer dress for the girl from Seven. Other tributes don't seem to be as uncomfortable with it (or have decided it's not worth fighting about), since I see plenty of skin in the crowd.

Glass is with my group, but I turn the kids around so they don't see him. "Now, I want you to both relax," I say. "You've got a long wait before Caesar gets to you, but don't get nervous. Listen to what the other kids say -"

"Haymitch, I'm a month older than you," Elmer says.

"Fine. Listen to the great wisdom of all of my elders." I make a rude gesture at him. "It'll make it look like you're interested. And you may as well be interested. There's nothing else to do up there."

"And it's the last thing we get to be interested in, too," Ginger says morosely.

"And don't you get like that!" I say. "You act like you have as much chance as anyone else."

"But I don't."

I try not to get frustrated with her. She's not wrong, and I know she's scared. But if she _is_ going to beat the odds, she can't go with this attitude. "Just… just _try_, okay? Your parents will want to see you _trying_."

"Fine."

I shake my head. "Caesar will help you. If you get stuck, he'll get you unstuck. Let him help. Let him get things where they need to be."

This is the best I can do for them, because they're already being herded out onto the stage. I go with Glass to the section of the audience that's been roped off for the Teams. I end up sitting by Seeder.

Last year, the interviews were excruciating on stage. By the time it got to me, I just wanted to get it over with. I keep a wary eye on Elmer and Ginger, hoping they won't start picking at things they shouldn't pick at, but they're pretty good.

The Career kids go through their usual boasts, of course. Beetee's girl Wiress is hopeless. She gets stuck on the angles of the lighting on the stage, and Caesar's best efforts can't get her back on track, and everyone is relieved when he moves on to the boy Ikris, who manages to get a little laugh out of the crowd when he tells them about building a tower out of silverware in the District Three apartment, which was going great until their escort wanted a dessert fork. The girl from Four takes over after that, bragging that she can turn anything into a rope, and she knows exactly how she means to use one.

Unsurprisingly, Drake has the kids from Six tarted up. The girl Cleo's dress is barely more than a bunch of wide ribbons made to look like train tracks, which can only generously be said to cover her up. Of the headlight on the boy's costume, the less said, the better. Neither of them has a lot to say, though Caesar does manage to tease a story out of Cleo about how she made clothes at home out of scraps of old packing material she found near the tracks. I'm willing to bet those clothes looked better than the ones she's in. The boy, whose name is Simon, just mutters something about people underestimating him, which sounds about as convincing as it can, coming from a skinny fourteen-year-old with a stutter and a bad case of pimples.

When Ginger's turn finally comes, she is limping a little bit from sitting still so long. Caesar leads her out by the hand, and compliments her outrageously on her pretty dress and her pretty hair… and he hears she knows a lot about some hair products. Though he does most of the talking at first, he does get her to sing the beginning of her jingle, and the audience approval seems to give her a little bit of strength. She sings another, louder, and it gets a round of applause. She tries a curtsy, but it doesn't quite work. No one seems to mind. Caesar leads her back to her chair, and I sigh with relief. It could have been a lot worse.

Elmer, on the other hand, fumbles. He forgets what he's talking about, mixes me up with someone else he played soldiers with (and actually stops to correct himself rather than going with it), then manages to ignore Caesar's nudging and talk about explosives anyway.

There's nothing I can do about it.

After the national anthem, I get them back inside. We watch the re-caps and the responses from people on the street. Someone from the shampoo company says she's going to call in and sponsor Ginger. No one has much to say about Elmer. The big winner of the night is the boy from One, who promised to "piss on" the rest of the field and dance under the flag with his picture on it.

I turn off the television when it's over.

"You did okay," I lie. "Don't worry about it."

"They were _terrible_," Glass says. "A silly girl and an incompetent boy."

"Ginger got a sponsor out of it."

"A corporate one," Elmer pipes in. "And maybe they can sponsor next year, too… whoever you bring."

"Yeah," Ginger says, her voice shaking. "Maybe I helped for next year." She bites her lip. "If it does help, will you tell her that I helped? Please?" Her face crumples and she starts to cry. "Will you tell her my name, Haymitch? Please tell her my name." She grabs at my shirt and clings to me.

I don't know what I'm supposed to do, or what's _right_ to do. I do know that I probably shouldn't go with my first instinct, which is to pull myself away and run as far as I can go. I try to think about what Gia would do.

I put my arms around Ginger and hold her as tightly as I can. "I'll tell her your name," I say.

She continues to cry. Elmer sits down at her side and takes her hand.

I look at him. "I'll keep both of your names. I won't forget."

He nods.

We sit this way for a long time, ignoring Glass's repeated sneers, until he finally leaves, and I have to send them to bed.

The Gamemakers will come for them early in the morning.


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter Eighteen**  
I sleep on the couch again, hoping I can say goodbye in the morning, but I'm summoned by the Gamemakers even before they are. In the lounge, I see the other mentors, all blinking blearily, none of them seeming surprised, so I guess this is normal. I find Chaff, Seeder, and Beetee, and no one seems to care whether or not we ride together over to the Viewing Center. I guess most of this cluster of buildings - from the Training Center to the Viewing Center to Caesar's towering office building - is just Games Headquarters, but I can't seem to think of it as anything so unified. There are buildings here that I'm not allowed to go into, and buildings that, at certain times, I won't be allowed to leave.

No one is in a talkative mood, and dawn in the Capitol, even at the start of the Games, is empty and slow. As the car passes through Headquarters, I see an Avox sweeping the street. He looks up at the car dully, then goes back to work.

Beetee is nervously twisting his watch and Seeder is looking fixedly at her hands. Chaff is staring out the window. He turns to me and starts to say something, then stops. The car is most likely bugged.

When we get out of the car, but before we enter the building, he grabs me. "Haymitch, we have to talk."

"Where can we do that?"

"Only here. They'll suspect something, but it doesn't matter."

A cold, creeping feeling comes over me, starting at the base of my spine. "What are you talking about?"

"Last night, Dibber told me that Ginger asked him to do something."

"What?"

"It was while they were in the crowd, getting off the stage. She said she doesn't want to slow anyone down trying to help her. She asked him…" He looks away from me. "She asked him to make it quick, if he gets to her first. To make it look real so no one would punish her family, but to make it quick."

I decide that I am still dreaming. This is not real. This is just some kind of anxious image, and soon Mom will appear in my head asking me what I'm trying to tell myself. "Is he going to do it?"

"He's thinking about it. He's not sure he can." Chaff sighs. "They spent time together in training. He likes her a lot. He wants to do what she asked. He doesn't want her bleeding out for hours because she can't get up."

All I can think of to say is, "I hate this."

Chaff nods, and leads us inside just before someone from Games Security decides to take matters into his own hands.

We file inside and go to our tables. Since Beetee and I have a formal alliance, he pushes his table over beside mine. The escorts aren't here yet, but there's a set of the tongs Glass uses to grasp things set up in front of a chair. Since my last visit here, I see that they've set up a row of clear booths, each equipped with a telephone of its own. They look like a line of ice sculptures.

"For privacy," Seeder explains. "When we have to call the families. They're soundproofed."

I look at the booths, sleek and impersonal. I will have to go into them, sit on those hard chairs, and tell the McCulloughs and Mr. Parton that their children are dead. They'll know, of course - they'll see it live if it happens during mandatory viewing hours - but there's still the phone call. The voice from home confirming it, making it real. That will be me. Haymitch Abernathy, the face of the district's murdered children.

Hadriana Livingston comes to the front of the room, smiling. She seems fairly pleased with herself. I don't know how she does it. She doesn't seem like a particularly bad person, but she actually seems to like her work. How does she separate herself like that?

"Welcome, mentors," she says. "The Games begin today. Your accounts will be active as soon as the countdown ends, with all of the previously pledged funds available to you." She presses a button in her hand, and a list of items appears on a screen. "These are the items available in the supply craft this year. You'll find it on your personal screens as well. You may order off-list, as always, but it is much more expensive. To order items not on this list, you must request a meeting with the Gamemakers… and we are obliged to grant those meetings without delay. Special items need to be approved as well as affordable."

She goes on with the general rules. Mentors have full say over gifts. Mentors may not send messages with the gifts. Mentors are expected to be fully reachable at all times. Our tributes lives are in our capable hands.

I listen with half an ear, but mostly pay attention to the list of supplies. Food is at the top, from simple fare like a slice of bread (maybe one of my donors could afford it) to full-course meals, which would bankrupt my entire sponsor base twice over. Water isn't too exorbitant, but it comes in plastic bottles which would catch the sunlight and act like a beacon to a tribute's location (the list doesn't tell me that, of course, but it's obvious). Unless the water in the arena is poison again, and I don't think they'll do that two years in a row, then I'll avoid sending water bottles.

There's a large selection of blankets available, and they're relatively cheap on the first day. Probably it will be warm at first, so no one will think of blankets, then cold at night, and they'll go up in price once it's clear that they're needed. I'll wait until the end of the Cornucopia bloodbath and if…

I shudder.

If my tributes are alive, I'll send them blankets while I can still afford it.

"You okay, Haymitch?" Chaff asks me quietly.

I shake my head.

Seeder takes my hand and holds it for the rest of Livingston's introduction. Most of it is stuff that was already covered at the orientation, but I guess they need to make sure we all really understand it.

"Will they show us the arena now?" I ask Beetee when it's over.

"No. We see it when the tributes do. What did you spot on the list?"

"Blankets. We need to get them today, or they'll be expensive. Or is this what they always cost?"

He glances down. "No. They're usually pretty pricey. Good call."

"Well, it could be that there's not going to be any need…"

"No, they don't bother putting them in the supply craft if there's never going to be a need."

I nod.

The Capitol attendants serve us a huge, celebratory breakfast, complete with a montage video of all the victors in our most victorious moment. I am the only one who was unconscious and having seizures for it. There are spicy tomato based drinks, and I have one to calm myself down, but ask Beetee to make sure I don't take another. I'm still taking my medicine, so the physical desire is tamped down, but my brain has never wanted so badly to be drunk.

The tributes are in flight now. Estimated flying time, an hour, which could put them almost back at the Mississippi, or up north beyond District Five. It could be anywhere, I guess. It doesn't mean anything, anyway. I saw the edge of the arena last year. It can be an entirely different biome inside from what I'd expect to find outside.

On screen, Caesar is doing the opening patter from his studio, remotely interviewing people on the street (what few are out in the Capitol). A boy who is wearing a shirt bearing Brutus's image says he only wishes Capitol kids were allowed to play, because he'd destroy the field.

An older woman coos over the male tribute from District Seven, and makes my skin crawl when she says, "He really is very, very beautiful, isn't he? I'd love to see him come back every year."

Caesar looks as disturbed by this as I am, and switches to questions about the arena. What kind of terrain are people hoping for? What sort of weather, what kinds of natural dangers? What have their favorites been?

Most people seem to be hoping for a fantastical arena, full of nearly magical mutts and gadgets, though the arenas they name as their favorites are almost universally primitive.

"I just hope the arena isn't as nasty this year," a woman in a giant blue wig says. "There were so many we barely got to know! I want to know them all before they're gone."

"Who are you rooting for?"

"District Twelve!" she squeals. "Oh, I just loved them last year, and little Haymitch Abernathy is the most darling thing! I just know he'll do well as a mentor."

Beside me, Chaff actually laughs out loud, then reaches over and pinches my cheeks. For a minute, I forget that his tribute is weighing the question of whether or not to murder mine, as she requested that he do.

I wave my butter knife at him as menacingly as I can. I have spent the last year puking and passing-out drunk, most famously with a strange girl's head face down in my lap. If that hasn't cured me of being "little" and "darling" to this woman, I can't think what will. Maybe I should call her for money.

The countdown to the beginning of the Games appears. Ninety minutes.

The squealing woman was apparently meant as a segue to a few minutes in Twelve, to reflect on the end of their victor's year. Now, it's back to having no monthly care packages… a benefit I had somehow forgotten they'd been getting, what with the whippings and hangings and hours in the stocks that have come along with it.

Mandatory viewing hasn't started yet, but people are starting to settle in the square in front of the huge broadcast screen, and I guess they showed my excitable fan, because they catch Danny trying not to crack up. He is sitting on the bakery steps with an arm over Mir's shoulders. He agrees that he's a friend of mine, and suggests that I'm mostly a good guy.

"Do you think Haymitch Abernathy can bring another victory year to District Twelve?"

I can see the laughter fading from Danny's face. "I think he'll give it his level best, and that's nothing to sneeze at. If I could pick someone to be in my corner, it would be Haymitch. But we went forty-six years without a victor. I don't _expect_ anything."

The camera turns to Mir. It loves her. It catches the sun in her golden curls, and turns the icy flash of her eyes to a harmless twinkle. She expounds on how she helped distribute food from the packages, and this might even be true. She works the production team like a pro.

Between that and the fact that she's a cold-hearted bitch with a violent streak, she'd probably have a pretty good chance in here, come to think of it. If she's ever reaped, I'll end up with a next door neighbor. Great. I wonder if there's anyone in town I could stand living next to who'd ever have a chance.

I shake this off. I don't want to start thinking of people I _want_ to bring here.

They move on to the Donners, all of whom are subdued. Kay looks like she's been taking a lot of whatever pain medication her parents got for her, and she pronounces everything slowly and with extraordinary care. "I believe in Haymitch," she says quietly. "My sister believed in Haymitch. My sister, Maysilee Donner."

The reporters don't seem to know what to do with this, but I mentally applaud Kay. Stoned or not, she's managed to remind everyone - politely and within the bounds of the law - that Maysilee existed, and was someone's sister, and mattered.

At nine-thirty, coverage cuts back to the rabid fans in the Capitol. Some are still up from Games parties they had last night. One or two have actually dragged themselves out of bed early for the celebrations. I don't pay much attention to them. This part is the same every year, and last year was the only year of my life I didn't hear it. Who's your favorite, are you betting, who has surprises up his or her sleeve. I wonder - ridiculously - if any of last year's hyperventilating fans were guessing they'd end up with a victor from Twelve who was unconscious during his final kill. I somehow doubt it.

Mostly, I'm bracing myself. I see everyone else in the room doing the same, in various ways. At the District Six table, Drake is already pouring himself shots of whiskey. He has them lined up in front of him in a row. I wonder if he'll start drinking before the bloodbath, or after. Districts One, Two, and Four, are having what looks like a serious conference. They must have their alliance in place. Across our abutting tables, Beetee is scanning our supply list. Blight is staring at the empty chair beside him. I wonder if Gia used to show up early. Woof from Eight has his eyes closed and his arms crossed over his chest. He's swaying back and forth, muttering under his breath. Faraday Sykes has moved over to the District Nine table, and they're all morosely comparing notes. Earl and Toffy from Ten are idly playing cards, but there's something very deliberate about the way they've oriented themselves away from the main screen. Chaff and Seeder are holding hands (Seeder is still holding my hand with her free one).

And I guess, if I were sitting somewhere else, I'd think that weird kid from District Twelve is just staring at everyone. Rookie.

The escorts start arriving fifteen minutes before the Games begin. I gather they've been at a meeting, mostly because Glass takes his seat, then glares at me and says, "I do not appreciate you going over my head."

"What do you mean?"

"Contacting tributes' families is one of the defined jobs of a Capitol escort."

"It's in the mentor's book, too. And I think I'll keep that one."

"And you found it necessary as well to question my potential handling of sponsors? I have never treated a Capitol citizen with less respect than is deserved." He smiles unpleasantly. "Of course, I've never treated you district brats with less respect than you deserve, either."

I almost get angry at Caesar, assuming that he shared the details of our meeting, but I realize before I open my mouth that Glass is just baiting me, hoping I'll confirm what he clearly suspects. I don't deny it, but I don't say anything, either.

Beetee introduces me to his escort, a thin man named Vitranio who keeps looking nervously at Glass. He's wearing a strange wig with straight, ear length metallic hair, and a suit that seems to be made of glimmering, woven ribbons. I guess the feather fad is over.

A soft but persistent tone fills the room, bringing conversations to an end. The opening strains of the Games theme play, and the screen fills with images of previous Hunger Games, all set to the same majestic fanfare we hear every year.

One of the two small screens on my desk - the one marked "Elmer Parton" - flickers to life. I see a clean prep room, and Lepidus running a comb over Elmer's black hair. It's a very strange angle. Ginger's remains dark, and I don't see either of Beetee's on.

"Of course," Glass says. "The way they pander to you, _naturally_ they've chosen the boy to see entering the arena."

Vitranio gathers his courage and says, "It's probably just because Twelve won last year, Ausonius."

Glass turns on him and says absolutely nothing. Vitranio backs down and looks at his feet. The broadcast has now turned to the lead-in to this year's Games. Claudius Templesmith voices over the montage. "And now, we enter the fifty-first Hunger Games. We've only just met this year's tributes, and the test that's now upon them will tell us more than an interview ever could. Who will be noble? Who will be clever? Who will have the heart and strength to bring all the glory home?"

On the little screen, I see Lepidus get Elmer situated in the tube, and then the perspective becomes even odder as whatever little micro-cam it is follows him. It floats up beside his ear, and I get a very clear view of how clean his neck is, then it turns and floats up to eye level. I stare at the blank wall of the tube.

_Look up, Elmer_, I will him. _Look up and let your eyes change, so the sun doesn't blind you._

Of course, I'm not actually seeing through his eyes, just through the camera beside him, so maybe he _is_ looking up. I can't see him, so I don't know.

I do know that my mind is trying to take me back to my prep room last year, to the sunlit field and the beautiful smells and the glittering butterflies with their poison stings.

I fight it off. I'm not in the arena now, and Elmer and Ginger can't afford my flashbacks.

"The time is here!" Claudius announces manically. "Welcome to the Fifty-First Hunger Games!"

The image on the screen switches to the feed I've been getting on Elmer's camera, and I see the tube begin to slide down. Light seeps in from above, and then the screen goes almost white with it.

When the glare clears, I see the Cornucopia, gleaming in the heavy sunlight. The broadcast goes to a wide shot, showing the twenty-four tributes standing in their usual circle. There's not time to see much, but I can see a rough, grassy plain with clumps of bushes. There do seem to be occasional trees, but nothing that will make forested cover. The aerial shot shows a river glinting as it passes along the east side of the arena. Claudius breathlessly identifies the terrain as "inspired by the grandeur of the African plain of legend, known as the Serengeti."

I know the word, but that's about all. My book of stories from around the world had stories that supposedly came from there. Animal fables, I think.

Mutts, then. Probably _big_ ones. Once the bloodbath is over, I'll have to see if there's anything to throw animals off their scents.

The shot circles down again, and the countdown begins.

"This is the environment where the human race began," Claudius says ominously. "It was our first testing ground as a species. Who will pass the test this year?"

On my desk, Ginger's camera has now come on. She does not have a brace. She's across the circle from Elmer. Dibber is a few tributes down.

The gong sounds.

On Elmer's screen, I see him rush for a nearby bag and I can only hope that's all he means to go for. It's too much as it is. He should be running far away.

Ginger steps calmly off her platform and looks to either side. She doesn't limp toward the Cornucopia or away from it.

She spots Dibber and starts a limping run at him.

Dibber's managed to snag a small bag out of the tall grass and is running for whatever they'll find in the wilderness.

Ginger screams and runs at him, lurching on her bad leg.

He catches her.

Turns her around.

Snaps her neck with one strong jerk of his hands.

She falls, the first lost on the field.

Dibber screams and runs for the river.

Ginger's screen goes dark.

I know what happened, but I can't process it. It's too much. I think of her on the train, humming her jingles. I think of her begging me to tell her name to next year's girl. I think of -

"Haymitch!"

My head comes up. Beetee points at Elmer's screen. He's gotten his bag, and he's running for a tree on a rise. It's the most obvious place I can think of, and anything at all could be hiding in the giant trunk.

"What do I do?" I ask.

Beetee shakes his head. "Look. They've got it. It's a system." He points at his screen, where Wiress is making a vague motion with her hands. She and Ikris are making for the same tree.

"They must have worked out a signaling system back in training," Beetee says. "They can do this."

"Ginger…"

"I know. I'm sorry."

"I should make the - NO!" On Elmer's screen, I see the boy from One - Lapis - running full tilt in my tribute's direction. He has some kind of sling that he's picked up from the ground. He's spinning it over his head.

A rock flies out of it, and Elmer falls on the open plain.

Lapis runs at him, drawing a knife, and I know that I'll have to call Mr. Parton, too, that neither of my tributes will make it to any place where they'll need sponsors.

There's a war whoop from off to one side, and a small red-haired boy tackles Lapis to the ground, grabbing a handy rock from off to one side. He brings it down viciously onto the other boy's head, and the first of the Career tributes goes down. The red-haired boy is identified on screen as Simon Drear, from District Six.

Wiress and Ikris arrive, panting. Ikris has managed to scavenge a decent knife, and Wiress has a small backpack, tied with a string. She's got the string stretched between her hands. She could use it as a garrote, though with the bag dangling, it would be awkward and not very strong.

Simon swipes the sling and the knife from the dead boy, but holds his hands up in surrender. "Allies!" he shouts. "I think your friend is still breathing!"

On the main screen, coverage cuts to a frenzied fight at the Cornucopia, with most of the Career tributes (minus Lapis, of course) scooping up the rich findings there and using the good weapons against anyone stupid enough to follow them.

Wiress goes in, and now I see her on Elmer's camera. Elmer is bleeding from a wound on his head, but his feed is still there. I see his eyes flutter.

"We need to…" Wiress starts, then waves vaguely in a direction away from the Cornucopia.

Ikris grinds his teeth. "We need to _what?_"

She points again.

It's enough. The boys pick up Elmer - Ikris at his shoulders, Simon at his feet - and follow Wiress over a small rise, away from the tree. Wiress spots a beaten track and guides them into the tall grass alongside it. This is at least a partially smart move. The trail will be a beacon, but the grass will hide them.

I just hope it doesn't lead to a mutt lair.

No one is following them yet. Around the room, I see other screens going dark.

"There's an ointment," Beetee says. "My girl had a cut two years ago, like the one Elmer's got. It's not too expensive, and it will heal that up quickly." He passes over the supply list.

I start to look at it, but I realize that I can't. That there's something even bigger than Elmer's cut, bigger than the new alliance. I see my own face reflected in the black emptiness of Ginger's screen.

"I need to call…" I trail off. The chair beside me is empty. I look across the room and see Glass in one of the communication booths. The light is on. He looks up at me and smiles wickedly.


	19. Chapter 19

**Part Three: Capitol**

**Chapter Nineteen**  
I push my screens in Beetee's direction, hoping he'll get the idea that he's in charge for the moment. I'm across the room in a few strides. I yank open the door of the booth and pull Glass out of it, throwing him down to the floor. I kneel on his chest, and put my foot down on one of his twisted hands.

"What did you say to them?"

He smiles, unfazed by his position, or by the pain I'm most likely causing in his hand. "I told them their brat paid the price for rebellion… their part of it, anyway, until another payment comes due."

From the booth, I hear Mrs. McCullough's voice. "Haymitch! Haymitch, what's happening?"

I look down at Glass. His smile is unperturbed, almost beatific. I grab the front of his shirt and pull him up to slam him down again. "You don't talk to anyone from District Twelve ever again," I say.

"And who are you going to have enforce your little tyrannies this time?"

"Just me. You listen and you _hear_ me: I will kill you. And if you think I care what they'd do to me for it, think again. Because I honestly don't give a tinker's damn." I get up and turn my back on him, going into the booth. I pick up the earpiece and look at the screen, where I can now see the McCulloughs in the mayor's office. They're a rough family with threadbare clothes, and the coal dust embedded in their skin makes them look prematurely old.

They're weeping openly. Ginger's little brother is clinging to their mother. Her older sister - married, with a baby of her own - is leaning on their father. There are a few other siblings. Like so many Seam families, they have a lot of children, in the hope that some of them will live.

"I'm sorry," I say. "I'm sorry about Glass. I told him I'd make the call. I told him -"

"I heard what you told him," Mr. McCullough says, stepping forward, wiping the tears from his face. "I heard, and I appreciate it, but don't do it. Don't."

"I-"

"Don't you leave these children with no one to take their side in this business."

I look down. "I'm sorry about Ginger. I'm sorry she got reaped. I'm sorry -"

"Ain't none of this your fault," he says. "We've got to go now, and be her family. You go help the boy."

I want to argue, but I can't. There's nothing more to do for Ginger, but Elmer is still breathing. Elmer might still need me. I nod. "I'll… I'll sit with Ginger on the way home," I say.

"I'm sure she'd be obliged if you did," Mr. McCullough says, then cuts off the connection.

I lean my head against the darkened screen for a few seconds to gather myself, then straighten up and turn around.

Five Capitol security agents are standing around the booth, weapons drawn. In front of them, looking green, is Plutarch Heavensbee.

"The Gamemakers want to see you," he says.

"My tribute - "

"Your ally has his back."

I guess there's no argument. I hope Mr. McCullough didn't see security getting ready to cart me off.

They escort Plutarch and me to the elevator, and we go in together. Between floors, he hits a button, and the thing comes to a stop.

I look at him. "What?"

"You have to stop this."

I don't answer.

He grinds his teeth. "The elevator isn't bugged. Too many Gamemaker conversations in here."

I continue to stare at him.

"Haymitch, I know it's frustrating, but there are bigger fish to fry than Ausonius Glass."

"What are you doing?" I ask him.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, what are you doing? Why are you doing it? If I can't defend my tributes, then what, exactly, do you think the point is?"

"Something bigger than one idiot being rude to a couple of people."

"_What?_"

"Freedom!"

"Freedom to do what?"

"Anything!"

"Good," I say. "Then I choose to be free to defend my tributes." I hit the button he hit, and the elevator starts again. Plutarch continues to fume the rest of the way up.

When the doors open, I see the Gamemakers running frantically around their fully active command center. The battle at the Cornucopia is still going on, but they're already putting together the montage of the deaths. Other than Ginger, I see the boy from One, Lapis, who Drake's tribute killed. He's the only Career I notice. Both of the kids from Five are gone, and the girls from Six, Nine, and Ten. There is much loud lamenting among the Gamemakers that the sex balance is already off by so much, especially since there was a male winner _again_ last year, and they can't have a boy three years in a row.

I look at Plutarch.

He shrugs.

Martius Snow spots us and breaks away from the group. He steers us toward an office.

"Thank you, Heavensbee," he says firmly, and stares at Plutarch until he leaves. "Well?" he says to me when the door closes.

"Well… what?"

"What am I supposed to be doing with you? Victors get a lot of privileges, but physically assaulting Capitol citizens isn't one of them. How many times do you think we'll be able to bend the rules for you?"

I frown. Martius Snow seems all right, considering, but I tell myself not to forget who he is. Whose ear he undoubtedly has.

But I can't quite keep the anger down. Ginger is dead. Glass tormented her parents. And I've been dragged up here while Elmer might well be dying, too. "He was insulting Ginger's parents. Twisting the knife. What am _I_ supposed to be doing with _him_? Ask him nicely to not attack people? What do you do in the Capitol when someone hurts people you're responsible to? I mean, what if I started torturing your father? What would you do?"

"Maybe not your best example," he says dryly. "I'd probably just want a good seat."

"Fine. What if I called Caesar's secretary and told her she was a party to murder? What if I kept twisting at it until she cried? And what if I did it while she was already grieving for someone?" I sit down. "Really… what do Capitol people do about things like that?"

"The funny thing is that I think you're actually curious about that." He shakes his head. "It depends on the Capitol person. My father would destroy you. I'd probably tip him off to do it, in a case like that. Most people would go to the authorities and wait quietly for something to be done, at least until the next distraction came along. They're not encouraged to start blood feuds over slights. Or to take matters into their own hands about anything, really. It's an alien idea to them." He sighs and leans on a desk. "This is your first year at this. You can get away with a lot by pretending not to know the rules, and being upset. Maybe some kind of quaint district attitude is in play. I could _maybe_ convince people that you've been drinking, even though no one's seen you do it. People understand that drunks do stupid things."

"Why not just tell the truth?"

He raises an eyebrow. "Just tell people that you were perfectly sober and rational when you declared war on my father's ally?"

I shrug. "It's what Glass will tell him, anyway."

"Oh, don't imagine that my father doesn't know exactly what you did and why you did it already, and what state of mind you were in. What my father knows personally is a lot less important than what the public hears about. They'll want an explanation if this gets out, and if you give the one you just gave me, that would be the seditionist propaganda that you agreed not to spread. It would be open season on you _and_ your future tributes for Glass. So, unless you think they'd enjoy his very close company, you'd better have a different explanation if anyone asks about it - and I'm pretty sure that Claudius Templesmith _will_ ask about it. He loves trying to get victors in compromising positions."

"Why would you let me go on this?"

"I like you. More accurately, Caesar likes you, and I trust his judgment. You're lucky this year - Hadriana is frankly enamored of you, and the other Gamemakers are too curious about what you'll do to let anyone really take you off the playing field. But stop pushing it. Their good will won't last forever, and my father has none for you. He considers you dangerous."

"So what do you want me to do? Apologize?"

"No one would buy that. Hate Glass all you want. But don't break any more laws doing it, because I can't rescue you from that anymore. You're not the only chess player here, and you're not the only piece on the board."

He looks at me very steadily for a long time, but I don't make the guess I think he wants me to, at least not out loud. Maybe he's all right. Maybe he's even a rebel. But he's Snow's son. I will let myself get angry, and say a lot of things, but I am not stupid enough to openly bring up rebellion with him, unless I have a hell of a lot more than an obscure hint about chess.

He nods, then stands up. "Don't do it again," he says. "No matter what Glass does."

And that, apparently, is that. He opens the door and gestures to me. I follow him out to the elevator, where an old woman in a bright yellow wig is waiting. She smiles. "Ah, Martius! I haven't seen you since you finished up at school."

Martius nods politely. "Professor Redmond. It's good to see you."

Redmond looks at me, her eyes lingering on my face. "Aren't you going to introduce me to your friend?"

"This is Haymitch Abernathy," he says. "Last year's victor. I'm sure you recognize him. Haymitch, this is Professor Avita Redmond, a friend of my father's." His voice seems tight, and I think I recognize some kind of warning in his stance, but I can't put my finger on it.

Redmond holds out her hand, and when I shake it, she clasps the other around mine. Her palms are sweaty. "The camera doesn't do you justice, boy," she says. "You're very lovely." She reaches up and runs her finger over my lips , then lets her hand trail down over my chest. "So _very_ lovely."

I extract my hand from hers and try not to wipe it on anything where she can see. "Thank you, ma 'am."

Her gaze roams over me. "I hope to see more of you soon."

The elevator door opens, and I practically run in. Martius leads Redmond back toward his office.

I scrub my hand on my shirt as the elevator takes me back downstairs. I think that, when Elmer and his allies have gotten someplace reasonably safe, I will take a very long, very harsh shower.

When I get to the Viewing Center, Drake has pulled his table over to join Beetee and me. "The alliance of no hope whatsoever," he says morosely. Glass is melodramatically tending his wounds over by the bar, and Vitranio is on the phone. Drake's escort is a pretty middle-aged woman named Rufina, and she is filling out alliance paperwork.

The camera is panning the area around the Cornucopia now. The grass is bright red in several places. They focus on the bodies. I look away when I see Ginger, her eyes open, face turned up to the sky. The canon starts to sound for the seven dead. I guess they've decided the bloodbath is over. The District Five table is already empty. Faraday is in one of the booths, probably talking to her tribute's family. Tesla is nowhere to be seen. I guess he's out in the Capitol. His duties have been discharged.

Our tributes come back to the main screen - Beetee's two, and Elmer, and Drake's boy. They've found a little hollow in the land, filled with bushes, and Wiress is busy clearing out a spot in the center. Ikris and Simon are taking turns helping her, and trying to stem the blood flow from Elmer's cut. He's unconscious. It looks like Simon has torn pieces off of his own shirt to be bandages.

"It's not as bad as it looks," Beetee says. "They're getting the readings from his tracker, and his vitals are strong. Scalp cuts just bleed a lot. I went ahead and ordered the ointment for him. It should be there in a few minutes. I hope that's all right."

"Yeah. It's what I meant to do. Are they far enough away that no one will see the parachute coming down?"

"They went in a different direction," Drake says. "Most people are heading for the river. So, are they throwing you in the dungeon?"

"Nah. But I'm not allowed to kill Glass, apparently."

"It's a damned shame. You'd think they'd be fine with it. They kill way better people all the time." Rufina gives him a little warning smile. He holds up his hand to indicate surrender on the point. "You know anything about this Serengeti landscape?"

I tell Drake and Beetee what little I know from stories. So far, no big mutts have shown up, but they agree it's likely to happen. When Vitranio gets off the phone, Beetee sends him to the library to get books about African fauna.

"Obviously, there's not much shelter," Drake says. "They can't stay in a hole in the ground forever."

"Probably can't dig it any deeper, either," I say. "They'll have something blocking the way down."

"What about caves?" Beetee asks. "I'm sure there are caves."

"Yeah. Bait for traps. Same with the river."

"They're going to need water, whether it's a trap or not."

I take a deep breath, and block out thoughts of the McCulloughs, and Glass, and strange women in yellow wigs touching my lips. It's surprisingly easy. "What do we know?" I ask. "Do they give us any maps?"

"Just an aerial view, same one they show on television." Drake turns his screen toward me and pulls up the shot. "Do you see anything?"

I look. The arena is a sort of long oval shape, hooked at one end. There are bulges along the sides where I guess force field generators must start new domes. I have a feeling I'll have to learn more about force fields if I'm going to keep doing this, but from what I can tell in the picture, this year, they've placed a large moat clumsily around the edge. I'm guessing this is a last minute addition, in case someone gets a bright idea about using the force field as a weapon. I'm willing to bet that the moat is either laced with water mutts, or, more likely, filled with the poison water from last year. Since neither of my allies suggests it as a water source, I'm guessing they've gotten that far in their reasoning, at least.

"Some parts of the grass are greener," I point out. "Underground water, maybe?"

"Or places where it pools," Beetee suggests. "They'll have run the environment for a while to get the plant growth."

Drake looks at the map, then pulls up Simon's screen. "Not to be an alarmist, but if we're talking about pools, our team looks like it's in the middle of one."

I bury my hands in my hair. The few trees are like big beacons to anyone who wants to find and kill them. The caves are undoubtedly mutt lairs. And hollows like the one they're in might just turn into ponds.

"Great," I mutter.

Before I can ruminate much further on this, a green light appears on the side of my screen, with a soft ringing sound.

"The parachute," Beetee explains. "They must be dropping it."

Sure enough, I see the tiny white speck fall from the sky. I watch the main screen, glance at the other mentors, but I don't see any indication that other tributes have noticed it. So far, so good.

It lands in the brambles at the edge of the hollow. Wiress notices it and drags it in. My opinion of her rises quite a lot when she very deliberately checks the branches and thorns for bits of torn cloth before descending again and offering the ointment to Simon, who's currently tending Elmer.

"Thanks," he says. He squints at the tube. "What the heck does this _say?_"

"It's medicine," Ikris says. "Put it on his head."

"An-tee-bay-oh…"

Ikris grabs it. "Antibiotic and coagulant, dope." He takes the bandages off Elmer's head, then puts some ointment on his finger and smooths it onto Elmer's skin.

"What's an antibiotic and coagulant?" Simon asks.

"Prevents infection," Wiress says absently. She's staring at the slope down into the hollow. "Stops bleeding." She runs her finger down along beside a root, then abruptly slams her fist into the dirt. Pebbles skitter down. She follows their motion with her eyes, then drops down and starts crawling around on the base of the hollow.

"She's got it!" Beetee says. "The dirt must have shifted when she brought the parachute in."

Drake looks at me, then back at Beetee. "I don't understand."

"It's what she _does_. She sees things. She sees the way the water will come."

The boys either don't notice what she's doing, or don't care. Simon takes off his shirt and starts to tear another strip off the bottom for bandages.

"You might want to save that," Ikris says.

"It's hot as hell out here."

"It's dry. I bet it'll get cold at night. I'll take the hem off mine, and if we need to change the bandage again, Wiress is next."

"They won't let them get away with _this_ for long," Drake says.

I think they will, though - maybe a day, at least. It's a story. Four small kids with only brains, and one of them injured. How will they get through? I think the Gamemakers might actually milk it for a little while, if the audience likes it.

The main coverage cuts to the two tributes from District Seven, identified on screen as Henry Cutler and Louisa Meadows. They've found each other, and there's some anguish over the lack of trees. "There are _always_ trees!" Henry laments. "Always! That's why we should win more!"

I glance over at Blight, who is busy rubbing his head. His escort has been on the phone constantly. Henry Cutler may not be very bright, but he's good-looking, I guess. _So_ very_ lovely,_ I hear in my head. The skin on my hand and lips crawls a little.

"You okay?" Drake asks.

"Did I have a sponsor last year who was a professor? Avita Redmond?"

Drake makes a great show of shuddering. "No. Sorry. I did _not_ go to that well for you. Or even for Maysilee. Why?"

"I met her upstairs."

"Remember how we talked about no more deals? She's a good one to not make deals with. She'll get what she wants, then still tie strings to the money."

"You've made deals with her before?"

He nods, but doesn't elaborate further than, "Diseased old witch."

"But no deals this year?"

"No deals this year," he confirms. "We all sort of agreed to that. Well, except Brutus, and maybe Etta Bossard from Nine. They can't punish everyone, can they?"

I think they probably can, but I don't say anything. Drake knows it as well as I do.

I go back to watching things through Elmer's camera. He's starting to come around, though, when he tries to sit up, he's clearly very dizzy. Ikris urges him to lie down again.

"What's she…?" Elmer points vaguely at Wiress.

"No idea. Hey, Wiress… what's up?"

Wiress looks up and gestures at the woven mat of vegetation above them. "Rain."

"There's rain?" Simon asks. "I'm thirsty. I don't see any clouds."

Drake sighs. "I miss mentoring the genius."

"Looks like Beetee has the genius this year," I say.

"A genius who could make a whole sentence would be more useful."

"Wiress can make sentences," Beetee says. "She writes quite nicely, actually."

"Great, we'll send her a notebook, and she can do a dissertation."

Wiress makes a fluttering motion with her fingers, and then points to the little furrow in the ground.

Simon shrugs. "No idea what that means."

Elmer pushes himself up to his elbows. "Show me again."

"It'll _rain_," Wiress says. "And then…" She points again to the path.

"Water erosion!" Elmer realizes. "We learned about it in mine safety. If you see a lot of that, the tunnel could be really unstable."

"Yes, unstable!" Wiress says, then mutters something incomprehensible, though the word "boys" comes out clear enough. "The rain comes down. _Here_."

"Are there flood marks over the edge on the ground?" Elmer asks. "Like ripples in the mud or something?"

Wiress shakes her head, but points to a line on the side of the hollow. Below it, there's a lot of rippled mud, at least in places the kids haven't disturbed. It's about up to where their knees would be.

"Great, it'll flood all the way up there," Ikris says. "Guess we better find another place -"

"No!" Elmer says. He fumbles for the parachute his ointment came in. "We'll dig a hole and line it. Our own personal water supply."

Drake raises his eyebrows. "Okay, District Three, I get. Inventors. But what the hell do they feed you guys in District Twelve?"

"Mountains that tend to fall down on you if you can't figure out what's making them tick," I say. It was one of Daddy's favorite things to point out, though I don't mention to Drake that it was generally in regard to other miners who thought that high-falutin' education Daddy wanted for me was going to be useless. Maybe it's better if Drake thinks Twelve is full of geniuses, instead of overrun with what Daddy called ornery, stubborn, on-purpose ignorance.

And maybe Daddy was a little harsh about it, anyway. No one ever bothered Elmer about his math and science, as far as I know. It was just my books they thought of as worthless and pretentious.

"We should get them a trowel or something," Drake says, and starts looking through the list. I'm not remotely surprised when he doesn't find any digging tools available.

My phone rings. Glass, thankfully, is still nursing his imaginary wounds. I pick up. It's a boy with a high, nervous voice. "Mm… Mr. Abernathy?"

"It's Haymitch," I say. "Can I help you?"

"Well, um, I'm Carus Deese, and me and some guys from our Astronomy Club want to help out Elmer. We have all our dues from the year…"

The astronomy club's dues for the year aren't enough to buy a slice of bread, but I thank them just the same, and add the money to the pot. Carus gives me permission to share it with the allies. "We like Wiress, too," he says. "But she's so smart, we figured _everyone's_ giving her money."

Beetee laughs at this - he hasn't gotten any calls for Wiress, who is odd, uncommunicative, and not very photogenic - but we start compiling a blanket fund from what we do have. Drake has some sponsors for Simon as well. It's not much, but the blankets are still cheap. (They've gone up since Ikris pointed out the likelihood of cold nights, but not by much.) We buy two of them for the four kids.

While the tributes are trying to decide whether or not the vegetation is poison again, we're served a sumptuous lunch from a buffet table. No one seems to mind the dissonance. I grab a huge sandwich. I consider a beer, but decide not to start drinking right now.

I hear a small commotion, nothing much, at the District Five table, where Faraday Sykes is cleaning up her things. I turn to watch. There's a man there, dressed in Capitol finery.

"It's a little late," Faraday says. "I don't need any sponsors this year."

"There's still next year," the man says. "Come on. I'll show you a good time, and you'll be one sponsor up for next year."

Drake comes up beside me. "She better not go. She promised."

"Why would she? The tributes from Five are both gone."

"Aw, come on," the man says. "You know the rules. Aren't you supposed to be available for sponsor meetings?"

"If you want to meet in an open conference room," Faraday says, "I'll be happy to hear your proposal for next year."

"You know what I want, Sykes."

Faraday turns to him, smiles, and makes a gesture with her hand that I don't think requires much translation.

"You'll be sorry next year," the man says.

He leaves.

There is a muted cheer from the other victors.

Above us, the Games go on.


End file.
